I (Brcat Comman^ers 

' , EDITED BY JAMES GRANT WILSON 



GENERAL HANCOCK 



Ube Great CommauDers Series. 


Ed 
Admiral 


TED BY General James Grant Wilson. 


Farragut. 




By Captain A. T. Mahan, U. S. N. 


General 


Taylor. 




By General O. O. Howard, U. S. A. 


General 


Jackson. By James Parton. 


General 


Greene. 


By Captain Francis V. Greene, U. S. A. | 


General 


J. E. Johnston. 




By Robert M. Hughes, of Virginia. 


General 


Thomas. 




By Henry Coppee, LL. D. 


General Scott. I 




By General Marcus J. Wright. 


General 


Washington. 




By General Bradley T. Johnson. 


General 


Lee. By General FnzHUGH Lee. 


General 


Hancock. 




By General Francis A. Walker. 




IN PREPARATION. 


General 


Sherman. 




By General Manning F. Force. / 


General 


Grant. 




By General James Grant Wilson. 


Admiral 


Porter. 


By James R. Soley, late Assist. Sec. of Navy. | 


General 


Sheridan. 


New Yo 


By General Henry E. D.wies. 


rk : D. Appleton & Co., 72 Fifth Avenue. 





(^^c^-^^ <:>t:^^^ 




GREAT COMMANDERS v ,\v. 
* * * * 



GENERAL HANCOCK 



BY y^ 

General FRANCIS A. WALKER 




^^ \Mi 



if^^^y 



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NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

i8q4 






Copyright, 1894, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 



All rights reserved. 



PREFACE. 

In writing this life of General Hancock I have, 
with the kind permission of the Messrs. Charles 
Scribner's Sons, drawn freely, as occasion required, 
from my History of the Second Army Corps, pub- 
lished by that house in 18S7. In the same spirit, 
I have introduced some paragraphs taken from my 
paper on General Hancock, read before the New 
York Commandery of the Military Order of the 
Loyal Legion in February, 1891, and from my ad- 
dress on General Sheridan, delivered before the 
City Government of Boston in December, 1888. I 
have also made use here, as in the History of the 
Second Corps, of the manuscript narrative of Gen- 
eral Charles H. Morgan, long inspector general and 
chief of the corps staff. 

I most painfully regret the indifference, if not 
aversion which for years after the war I felt toward 
all that related to the incidents of the great strug- 
gle. As in the case of most soldiers, I suppose, 
everything that brought back those days and nights 
of suffering and anxiety was unwelcome, and ma- 
terial which would now be of priceless value was 



vi PREFACE. 

neglected and scattered. When, in 1883, I took 
seriously up the task of writing the History of the 
Second Army Corps, many whose personal recoUeC' 
tions would have enabled me not merely to speak 
with confidence of occurrences, dates, and order of 
events, but to give life and motion to the story, had 
died from the effects of hardships, privations, and 
wounds. Even during the four years devoted to 
that work scores of the most valued officers con- 
cerned with those great achievements, including 
three of the commanders of the corps, passed away, 
carrying with them knowledge never to be regained. 
And now, as I undertake to write this life of Han- 
cock I have daily to grieve that it is beyond my 
power to ask this question and that question of Han- 
cock himself, of Morgan, of Mitchell, of Wilson, of 
Parker, the briefest answer to which might serve to 
solve a difficulty or to cast a flood of light over what 
seems dark and inexplicable. It was probably in the 
nature of the case; but, oh, the pity! that the first 
years of peace were not taken to put down the per- 
sonal experiences of hundreds of commanding and 
staff officers; to collate and compare the recollec- 
tions of thousands of participants in the mighty 
struggle ; and thus to give to those who shall come 
after us abundant material for a true and vivid 
history of the Civil War. F. A. W, 

September, 18^4. 



CONTENTS 



Introduction . . . ■ 
I.— Birth and Education 

II. Down to the Great Rebellion 

in. — Williamsburg to Antietam 
IV. — Fredericksburg . . • • 
v.— Chancellorsville 
VI.— Gettysburg.— The First Day . 
VII.-^Gettysburg.— The Second Day 
VIII.— Gettysburg.— The Third Day 
IX.— After Gettysburg . 
X.— The Wilderness.— First Day. 
XI.— The Wilderness.— Second Day 
XII. — Spottsylvania . 
XIII.— The Salient 
XIV. — The North Anna and the 
XV. — Cold Harbor 
XVI.— Petersburg . 
XVII. — Deep Bottom 
XVIII.— Reams's Station . 
XIX.— The Boydton Road 
XX. — After the War . 
Index . 



TOTOPOTOM 



PAGE 

I 

7 

i6 
28 
53 
73 
95 
119 

133 

148 

158 
168 
183 
194 
209 
217 
230 
246 
259 
279 
295 
319 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



FACING 
PAGE 



Portrait of Winfield Scott Hancock . . Frontispiece 

" The Right " at Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862 . . 63 

Chancellorsville, May 3, 1863, Morning .... 84 

Gettysburg 109 

" The Salient " at Spottsylvania ...... 195 

Reams's Station, August 25, 1864 264 

Action of Boydton Road, October 27, I S64 .... 285 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



INTRODUCTION. 

It has often been remarked that, as a war re- 
cedes further and further into distance, the popular 
mind more and more comes to attribute to one com- 
manding character the whole glory of the achieve- 
ments of the victorious army. Little by little the 
lesser figures fade out of the picture, until, to the 
common sight, the army becomes only the extension 
of one man, whose intellect and will did not merely 
control, but create, the forces which he moved with 
such effect. In this there is much of justice, for in 
many wars the successful leader, whom fame thus 
selects for immortality, actually did, by his genius, 
bring into existence all that was above the common- 
place — was, in effect, his whole army, in all that com- 
pelled victory. He had, indeed, capable and efficient 
lieutenants to execute his plans and to lead the wings 
of his battle line ; regiments, brigades, and divisions 
were officered by men who in many actions received 
deserved praise ; while the rank and file were in their 
place brave, loyal, and enduring. Yet it still remains 



2 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

true that the general was the army, and the whole of 
it, in this sense : first, that had the army, good as it 
was, been given into the hands of a soldier less mas- 
terful, it would, in the situation existing, have been 
beaten ; secondly, that had the commander been 
given an army far less fortunately composed and 
officered, he would, before the end, have shaped 
and tempered it until it was fit for victory. 

But it is not alone in respect to wars where, in 
this high sense, the leader was his own army, and 
by himself achieved the triumph, that the popular 
mind passes through the change we have indicated, 
gradually losing sight of the subordinate characters 
of the contest, and finally attributing all merit to 
one man. The same result is often seen where its 
justice can fairly be impeached by the student of 
military history, and where it contradicts the best 
contemporary opinion of the army and the people 
concerned. Hardly more rapid is the transference 
of the virtues of the soldiery and the subordinate 
commanders to him who finally won the victory, in 
cases where sound criticism confirms the justice of 
the act, than in cases where it is known to the his- 
torical scholar, where it was well known to the peo- 
ple of the time, that great substantive portions of 
the work were performed by soldiers of original and 
independent genius, perhaps by men who long dis- 
puted the first rank. Nay, that result is scarcely 
less likely to be reached, even in instances where it 



INTRODUCriON. 3 

was but an open secret to the army and the men of 
the time, that the successful leader owed all to some 
devoted 'staff officer or officers, some exceptionally 
gifted yet unaspiring lieutenant or lieutenants who 
braced him around, supplied his deficiencies of 
thought or temper, inspired him with fresh deter- 
mination when he faltered, suggested the one pos- 
sible path out of seeming destruction, or pointed to 
the cardinal manoeuvre of the impending conflict 
which should turn the scale of battle. In a word, 
whether for justice or for injustice, the popular 
mind is almost certain, as a war recedes into dis- 
tance, to pass through the change indicated. 

But while the tendency exists and operates con- 
tinuously to bestow upon the one successful leader 
of a great war the entire praise for all that was done 
by his soldiery and his subordinate commanders, 
there is, in a single respect, a tendency which 
works in the opposite direction. One would not 
wish to say that even this exception always sup- 
plies a correction of the verdict of posterity where 
that verdict is most erroneous, for it must be con- 
fessed that the exception itself may be lightly made 
—is, in fact, often the result of mere popular favor, 
or is due to adventitious circumstances, sometimes 
to considerations little worthy of respect. 

The exception to which I refer is that by which, 
in regard to most wars which attract considerable 
attention, some one general of division or com- 



4 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

maiider of an army corps is selected for a popular 
hero, largely by virtue of peculiarly taking qualities, 
of conspicuous dash and martial spirit, of a figure 
romantic or heroic in a degree which captivates 
the public fancy. Thus, while the world attributes 
more and more to Napoleon the credit of all that 
was done in those great wars against half Europe, 
and the stars of Moreau and Kleber, Massena 
and Lannes, sink ever nearer and nearer the hori- 
zon, the fame of Michel Ney receives only added 
luster with time. Thus, while many an American 
to-day fails to recognize the name of Nathanael 
Greene, the picturesque figures of Israel Putnam 
and Anthony Wayne are scarcely less conspicuous 
than they were in the first years after the Revo- 
lution. The highly and severely intellectual char- 
acter of the great commander's office rather repels 
than attracts the admiration of many minds. The 
truly popular hero should be one somewhat below 
the highest, to whom men can draw closer than they 
can to the chief, who through the long vigils of the 
night plans in his tent the action of the coming day, 
revolving all the chances of an adverse fortune, re- 
ceiving by booted and spurred messengers the last 
word from the skirmish line, and issuing orders with 
the punctilio of a secretary of state. Men love, the 
rather, to think of the daring leader of corps or 
division who, in executing those orders, forms in 
the darkness the dense column of assault, or dashes 



INTRODUCTION. 



5 



along the very front of raging battle, the inspiration 
of every soldier, the incarnate genius of war. 

These remarks are appropriate to the place of 
the subject of this memoir among the illustrious 
soldiers who have been taken for the purposes of 
the present series. Of them all, Hancock was the 
only one who never had a separate command. All 
the others, perhaps through most of the campaigns 
to which they owe their fame, exercised the full 
authority, bore the whole responsibility, of men in- 
trusted with the destiny of armies. It was, there- 
fore, to the justness of their military conceptions, 
and to the skill and care and pains with which their 
plans were worked out, that their reputation was 
mainly due, though something must be allowed for 
personal bearing and influence, something also for 
fortune. Hancock, on the other hand, though he 
often conducted expeditions of a corps or of two 
corps, out from one or the other flank of the Po- 
tomac army, always did his work in execution of 
orders as precise as the situation allowed, never far 
beyond the reach of messengers from general head- 
quarters, often under the very eye of the commander 
in chief. In the actions which contributed most 
largely to his fame he commanded a corps, or a 
wing of a line of battle, under' the immediate au- 
thority and direction of a superior officer. It is, 
therefore, to the love soldiers bear toward a daring 
and brilliant subordinate, and to the deli2:ht the 



6 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

popular mind feels in contemplating the heroic and 
romantic qualities in war, that Hancock owes the 
fame which has given him a place in the present 
series. That — if any one not the commander of a 
separate army is to be taken for such a purpose — 
Hancock is entitled to the honor, few will deny. 
His rightful pre-eminence among all the corps com- 
manders of the Union army in the great war of se- 
cession can not be better stated than in the words 
of General Grant : 

" Hancock stands the most conspicuous figure of 
all the general officers who did not exercise a sepa- 
rate command. He commanded a corps longer than 
any other one, and his name was never mentioned 
as having committed in battle a blunder for which 
he was responsible. He was a man of very conspic- 
uous personal appearance. Tall, well formed, and, 
at the time of which I now write, young and fresh- 
looking, he presented an appearance which would 
have attracted the attention of an army as he passed. 
His genial disposition made him friends, and his per- 
sonal courage and his presence with his command in 
the thickest of the fight won for him the confidence 
of troops serving under him." — Grant's Personal 
Memoirs^ vol. it, page ^39- 



CHAPTER I. 

BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 

WiNFiELD Scott Hancock was one of twin 
brothers, born February 14, 1824, to Benjamin 
Franklin and Elizabeth Hancock, then resident in 
the village known as Montgomery Square, in Mont- 
gomery County, Pa. The name of the county is 
popularly reputed to have been given in honor of 
the patriot general who fell in the assault on Quebec 
in 1775. In some notes now lying under my hand, 
however, General Hancock suggests that the name 
may have been derived from Montgomeryshire in 
Wales, many of the early settlers of the Pennsylvania 
shire having been of Welsh origin, as other well- 
known names besides that of Merion testify. 

Benjamin Franklin Hancock had been born in 
Philadelphia in 1800 ; his father, Richard, an Eng- 
lishman ; his mother, Ann Maria Nash, a Scotch 
woman. His wife, Elizabeth Hoxworth, a native 
of Montgomery County, was of English and Welsh 
ancestry. The name was originally Hawkesworth. 
Members of that family had served in the French 
and Indian wars, in the Revolutionarv armv, and in 



8 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the War of 1812. After his marriage, Benjamin Han- 
cock supported himself by public teaching, until he 
was admitted to the bar in 1828, upon which he re- 
moved with his wife and his twin sons to Norris- 
town, in the same county. Here another son was 
born to him, and here the family continued to re- 
side until it was dissolved by death, Mr. Hancock 
passing away in 1867, Mrs. Hancock in 1S79. Ben- 
jamin Hancock was a man of a noble presence, fair, 
tall, and strong, like his illustrious son ; dignified 
and courteous in bearing, honorable and faithful 
alike in private and in professional relations. He 
took an active part in the affairs of the community, 
and throughout his life commanded the affection 
and the respect of his fellow-citizens. 

It hardly needs to be said of such a man as Win- 
field Scott Hancock became, that in boyhood he was 
spirited, energetic, honorable, and a leader among his 
playmates and schoolmates. The reader will doubt- 
less be thankful for being spared the incidents which 
are sure to be related of any one risen to high dis- 
tinction. With intelligent and cultivated parents, 
one of whom had for years been engaged in teaching, 
and with excellent schools at hand in the thriving 
borough which held the family home, a lad of young 
Hancock's intellectual activity and ambition could 
not fail to secure a sound and thorough elementary 
training. The region in which he was brought up 
was one of the loveliest of Pennsylvania. All infiu- 



INTRODUCTION. q 

ences, alike those of the family, of the community, 
and of the school, concurred in giving a full and 
harmonious development to his excellent natural 
powers of body and of mind. 

I have spoken of Hancock's intellectual activity 
and ambition. I would not be understood as attrib- 
uting to him a lofty intellectuality such as might, 
in a different career, have made him a leader of 
thought or speculation. He was, in the main bent 
of his nature, meant for action and for command. 
But all that we hear of his childhood and his youth 
shows that he had a strong and constant desire to 
distinguish himself. He took a prominent part in 
the debates of his school and of a small literary and 
philosophical club composed of the boys of the vil- 
lage. He was fond of the society of his elders, and 
listened eagerly to the discussion of political issues. 
At the age of fifteen he was selected to read the 
Declaration of Independence to his fellow-townsmen 
on the 4th of July. It is related that, even four 
years earlier, he had taken a great interest in poli- 
tics, and on the setting up of a new Democratic 
newspaper in Norristown, in which his father had 
some share, entered the office as a volunteer com- 
positor. It is clear that, had he not become a sol- 
dier, he would have been a keen politician, one who 
would have had to be reckoned with in the affairs of 
his State and perhaps of the nation. Indeed, though 
Hancock was one of the most soldierly men that 



lO GENERAL HANCOCK. 

ever lived, he was always something of a politician, 
in the sense that authority was exercised by him with 
tact and with a great deal of diplomacy. No man 
ever cultivated his personal and professional rela- 
tions more carefully, or had a livelier sense of the 
virtue of courtesy, conciliation, and considerateness 
in the use of power. 

While still in school, at home, some native stir- 
rings of martial spirit, quickened doubtless by the 
fact that he had been christened with the name of 
America's greatest living soldier, led him to organize 
a military company among his playmates, of which 
he became captain and at the head of which he pa- 
raded on the recurring festival of the nation. Many 
a boy has done as much who in after life was well 
contented with the avocations of peace ; but those 
who have seen Hancock commanding an army corps 
with such delight in the exercise of authority, such 
a keen zest in military manoeuvres, may be excused 
for thinking that this boyish soldiering here meant 
something more than usual. 

At the age of sixteen the personal kindness of 
the member of Congress from the Montgomery dis- 
trict made the choice between politician and soldier; 
and in 1840 Hancock entered West Point as a cadet. 
He was afterward accustomed to express himself as 
feeling that this early entrance upon severe profes- 
sional training was unfortunate. Many a lad is ma- 
ture enough at sixteen to take up such studies and 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION. n 

exercises as those which characterize our noble Mili- 
tary Academy ; but Hancock at this age was but 
half grown. His large frame and powerful physique, 
his unfailing flow of animal spirits, and his impulsive 
disposition required a longer period of development 
in the preparatory stage. The severity of the re- 
quirements at West Point at this time may be 
judged from the fact that, although his class num- 
bered nearly one hundred at the start, it was re- 
duced at the end of the first year to fifty-four, of 
whom only twenty-five finally graduated. 

Among Hancock's contemporaries at West Point 
were many afterward highly distinguished in the 
war. In the class directly above his own — that of 
1843 — were Grant, Franklin, J. J. Reynolds, Augur, 
Ingalls, Hamilton, J. J. Peck, and Fred Steele. In 
the class next below his own — that of 1845 — were 
Fitz John Porter, Hatch, Davidson, Sackett, Gordon 
Granger, Glitz, David A. Russell, Thomas J. Wood, 
William F. Smith, Charles P. Stone ; and of those 
who joined the Confederacy, W. H, C. Whiting. In 
the class of 1846 were McClellan, J. G. Foster, Reno, 
Couch, Sturgis, Seymour, Stoneman, James B. Fry, 
Gibbs, G. H. Gordon, Innis H. Palmer; and of Con- 
federates, Maxey, Wilcox, Pickett, and D. H. Maury, 
His own class — that of 1844 — contained few men 
destined to become of note. The class was very 
small, graduating, as stated, only twenty-five; and 
these were subjected to an extraordinary number of 



12 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

fatalities. Five of the twenty-five — a truly remark- 
able proportion — were killed in the war with Mexico 
within four years of their graduation. Five more 
died before the rebellion broke out. Six resigned 
before the war, and remained thereafter in civil life, 
of whom but one became distinguished. This was 
W. G. Peck, who recently died while professor of 
mathematics at Columbia College. Three resigned 
before the war, but entered the Confederate service, 
of whom but one — General and Governor Buckner, 
of Kentucky — attained high rank. One had been 
dismissed from the service before the rebellion. 
This left but five in the army in 1861. Of these, one 
was discharged on account of disability in 1863; an- 
other, the gallant General Alexander Hays, was killed 
in the Wilderness, May 5, 1864 ; the remaining three 
served through the war, Hancock and Pleasonton 
alone attaining conspicuous positions. Of all the 
members of the class of 1844 but three are living 
as I write — Buckner, Frost, and Pleasonton. With 
many of his classmates and contemporaries Han- 
cock formed a close intimacy, being himself cordial, 
frank, and companionable. In scholarly rank he had 
not much to boast of, graduating number eighteen 
in a class of twenty-five. Hancock's record, as fur- 
nished me by Colonel John M. Wilson, Corps of En- 
gineers, recently commanding the Military Academy, 
may be of interest : 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 



13 



WINFIELD SCOTT HANCOCK, OF PENNSYLVANIA. 

Entered July /, 1840, aged sixteen years, four months ; graduated 
June, 1844. 



Fourth Class, June, 1841 
(54 members). 

General standing 32 

Mathematics 34 

French ,• • • • 34 

Number of demerits 85 

Third Class, June, 1842 
(44 members). 

General standing 35 

Mathematics 36 

French 33 

Drawing 7 

Rhetoric, grammar, and 

geography 38 



Second Class, June, 1843 
(34 members). 

General standing 18 

Philosophy 23 

Chemistry 18 

Drawing 5 

Number of demerits 36 

First Class, June, 1844 
(25 members). 

General standing 18 

Engineering 20 

Ethics II 

Infantry tactics 6 

Artillery tactics 11 

Mineralogy and geology .... g 



Number of demerits 140 Number of demerits . 



46 



In all military exercises Hancock excelled, and 
he showed marked aptitude for the routine of cadet 
life, qualified by a certain liking in the earlier years 
of the course for boyish escapades. The records of 
the Academy do not show that, while a cadet, he 
ever held the appointment of corporal or sergeant, 
but do show that he was appointed on the 23d of 
June, 1843, a cadet lieutenant, tenth in order of 
rank. The foregoing table shows that while his 
general average was far from high, he did well in 
drawing, in tactics, in natural history, and in ethics. 
The number of demerits, which appears somewhat 



14 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



formidable for the first half of his course, falls off 
markedly during the last half. 

Kent's Commentaries on the Constitution of the 
United States at this time formed a part of the 
course at West Point. To these, at his father's re- 
quest, he added the reading, six times through, of 
Chitty's Blackstone, with the study of a law glos- 
sary. In a note under my hand General Hancock 
explains his father's wish by the remark, "In fact, 
he intended me finally to become a lawyer." Resig- 
nations from the army soon after graduation from 
the Military Academy were in this period very com- 
mon. I have already stated that nine of Hancock's 
small class did so resign, while to any one at all 
familiar with the history of the war the names 
of Grant, Sherman, McClellan, Hooker, Burnside, 
"Stonewall" Jackson, and many others, will readily 
occur as among those who in other classes left the 
service for civil careers which were interrupted by 
the outbreak of the rebellion. 

Doubtless it was to the course of extra reading 
referred to, combined with the strong political bias 
acquired in his childhood, that Hancock owed that 
interest in matters of government and law which led 
him to take up so actively the question of the rights 
of citizens in the seceding States during his admin- 
istration of the military district comprising Louisiana 
and Texas, in i867-'68. Those who held strongly 
by the reconstruction acts, and hence disapproved 



BIRTH AND EDUCATION. 



15 



General Hancock's course at this time, were much 
disposed to look upon his measures and reports 
merely as a political " card," played by an ambitious 
officer ; but those who had known him long were 
well aware that he was always fond of discussions 
regarding the powers of the General Government, 
and maintained opinions on the subject of a highly 
conservative character. 



CHAPTER II. 

DOWN TO THE GREAT REBELLION. 

It has been shown that Hancock's career at West 
Point was in no sense distinguished. He was as far as 
possible from being one of those prodigies who, ap- 
pearing every now and then in college or academy, 
command, often in an absurd degree, the admiration 
of their fellows, and arouse expectations of a gen- 
eral conflagration when once they shall get into the 
world. Nor was this failure of Hancock to attract 
special attention during his undergraduate life due to 
diffidence or modesty or early disadvantages on his 
part, or to adverse conditions in the Academy, or to 
envy or jealousy on the part of his comrades. The 
fact is, there was no reason at all why Hancock 
should make a mark at West Point. The qualities 
which, in their degrees and proportions, made him 
eminently powerful and successful as a corps or 
wing commander were not those which would give 
academic distinction ; while the bigness of the plan 
on which he was cut out, though not as yet made 
up, and his youth and comparative immaturity upon 
entrance, caused his career to be, on the whole, 



DOWN TO THE GREAT REBELLION. 



17 



rather less than more conspicuous than might have 
been conjectured from his subsequent achievements. 

And again, although the young soldier was soon to 
be brought into the midst of stirring events, and was 
to be given an opportunity to show his mettle, under 
the eyes of great captains, in great and memorable 
actions, he was not destined to win early renown. 
We shall not truly appreciate Hancock if we fail 
to see that he was not of that kind. His ultimate 
success was to be pre-eminently through character, 
which in a subaltern affords small ground for dis- 
tinction, and through training, which requires years 
of experience in petty duties and small commands. 

Graduating from the Academy on June 3ot'h, Han- 
cock was, on the ist of July, 1844, brevetted second 
lieutenant in the Sixth Infantry. The company to 
which he was assigned was then stationed at Fort 
Towson, in the Indian country, near the Red River 
and the Texan border. The region abounded in 
the noblest of game, and the officers of the army 
posts were quite as much occupied in the pursuit 
of it as in regimental work. Hancock was a keen 
sportsman, and the exhilarating life of the two 
years spent here were admirably suited to bring 
out the spirit of the man and fill up his frame. 
On the i8th of June, 1846, he received his com- 
mission as second lieutenant, and was assigned to 
a company of the Sixth, then stationed on the bor- 
ders of Mexico, where war was impending. But 



I 8 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

his progress to the front was destined to be long 
delayed. First the commanding officer at Fort Wa- 
shita, deeming his services necessary at his post, re- 
fused to allow him to join his company. Then he 
was sent to Fort Scott, on the Missouri frontier, and 
afterward to Cincinnati, to assist in mustering in 
volunteers. It was not until Taylor's army had 
overrun northern Mexico, fighting the battles of 
Palo Alto, Resaca de la Palma, Monterey, and 
Buena Vista, and Scott with his column had captured 
Vera Cruz and had fought the battle of Cerro Gor- 
do on his victorious march up the valley of Mexico, 
that the young lieutenant was, in consequence of 
his urgent petition, permitted to go into the field. 
Landing at Vera Cruz, he was assigned to duty 
with a command composed of fourteen companies 
of infantry, from various regiments, under Colonel 
Milledge L. Bonham, forming a part of the com- 
mand of General (afterward President) Pierce, which 
was to be thrown forward to re-enforce Scott. The 
march of this column was accomplished without for- 
midable resistance, though not without much annoy- 
ance from parties of guerrillas, which beset the road 
and seized every opportunity to harass the troops 
and cut off stragglers, couriers, and convoys. Han- 
cock came frequently under fire; and at the Nation- 
al Bridge, August 12th, he commanded a company 
which took part in dislodging a considerable body 
of the enemv who had fortified the heights and in- 



DOWN TO THE GREAT REBELLION. jq 

flicted no small loss upon our troops. On arriving 
at Puebla, Hancock joined his own regiment. The 
army of invasion, thus re-enforced, resumed its for- 
ward movement, nearly eleven thousand strong. 
The enterprise, fortitude, and composure with which 
that perilous march to the Mexican capital was con- 
ducted by the lionlike chieftain against vast odds 
can never be too highly applauded; but this narra- 
tive does not call for any account of the strategy 
of the campaign, or any description of Scott's splen- 
did victories. 

Regarding the young officer, youngest of the 
lieutenants of his regiment, whose presence fur- 
nishes the only reason for here referring at all to 
these operations, it is enough to say that he bore 
himself with promptitude, energy, and courage. 
The captain of his company having been wounded 
at Churubusco, Hancock was left in command. In 
the column of assault at Molino del Rey, on 
the 8th of September, he found himself by the 
side of Longstreet, Pickett, Armistead, and Ed- 
ward Johnson, all of whom he was to meet as 
enemies on other fields. It was Edward Johnson 
whom, with his division, he captured in the Salient, 
at Spottsylvania, on the 12th of May, 1864. Armi- 
stead fell within Hancock's line on the 3d of July 
at Gettysburg. Pickett will ever be famous as the 
leader of the division which was directed upon " The 
Clump of Trees;" while that occasion was neither 



20 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the first nor the last in which Longstreet and Han- 
cock encountered each other as commanders of op- 
posing forces. The adjutant of the regiment hav- 
ing been killed at MoUno del Rey, Hancock was 
appointed to his place, from which he shortly after- 
ward retired to take command of a company. He 
was brevetted first lieutenant for '' gallant and meri- 
torious conduct at Contreras and Churubusco," to 
date from August 20, 1847. In the severe battle 
of the 13th of September, which resulted in the occu- 
pation of the City of Mexico by our troops, Hancock 
was again engaged with credit. He remained in 
Mexico until the last division of our victorious army 
was withdrawn upon the conclusion of the treaty of 
peace. During the march to the coast he acted as 
regimental quartermaster and commissary. On his 
return to the United States he was assigned to duty 
as quartermaster at Fort Crawford, Prairie du Chien, 
Iowa, and here he remained until the spring of 1849, 
when he was ordered to Fort Snelling, Minn. After 
reaching his new post he was granted five months' 
leave, to enable him to visit his home in Pennsyl- 
vania, from which he had been five years absent. 

It has been said that when Hancock went to the 
Military Academy it was his father's plan that he 
should, sooner or later, retire from the army, as was 
the fashion in those days, and take up the profession 
of the law. But after the stirring scenes in which 
the young man had been engaged during i847-'48, 



DOWN TO THE GREAT REBELLION. 2 1 

such a lame and impotent conclusion was in no 
man's thoughts. The real bent of his character, 
the most congenial employment of his powers, had 
become manifest beyond *the possibility of mistake. 
By nature Hancock was a soldier, every inch of him, 
and he now felt it in every fiber of his being. He 
delighted in the exercise of authority. He enjoyed 
the active business of camp and the march, while, 
by what might almost seem a contradiction, he loved 
"papers," rejoicing in forms and regulations and 
requisitions. He had had a taste of the sterner parts 
of war, and he liked them. The smoke of battle had 
been in his nostrils, and he found it fragrant. The 
stir, the clash, the collision, the fierce encounter, the 
intense excitement of battle, the danger and the ter- 
ror, suited his ardent, aggressive, martial tempera- 
ment. And then he was profoundly ambitious of 
distinction, waking slowly to that honorable pas- 
sion, but at last thoroughly possessed by it, and 
determined to win his way and make a name for 
himself in his chosen profession. 

In the autumn of 1849 Hancock rejoined his regi- 
ment, of which he had been made adjutant, at St. 
Louis, and was soon appointed to act as aid on the 
staff of Brigadier-General N. S. Clark, commanding 
the military department which extended from the 
Indian country to the British possessions on the 
north. On the 24th of January, 1850, he was mar- 
ried to Miss Almira Russell, daughter of a St. Louis 



22 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

merchant. The union was a happy one at the time, 
and remained a happy one until it was broken by 
death. A son, Russell Hancock, was born early in 
their married life. The only other child, a daughter, 
Ada Hancock, was born several years later, in Flor- 
ida. In Missouri, either at St. Louis or at Jefferson 
Barracks, Hancock remained until 1855, reaching his 
first lieutenancy in the Sixth Infantry, January 27, 
1853. He became assistant adjutant general of the 
Department of the West, with headquarters at St. 
Louis, January 19, 1855, having by this time ac- 
quired a wide reputation for his mastery of army 
business and his knowledge of the regulations. He 
was appointed assistant quartermaster in the army, 
with the rank of captain, November 7, 1855, and was 
assigned to duty in Florida. The occasion was one 
which allowed the exhibition of the highest abilities 
in the equipment of expeditions and the supply of 
troops. The Seminole War had broken out in a 
country most difificult of access to regular troops 
and affording opportunity for all the artifices of sav- 
age warfare. Captain Hancock was stationed at 
Fort Myers, on the Caloosahatchee River, and here 
he displayed so much energy, foresight, care, and 
industry, that, when General Harney was ordered 
from Florida to Kansas, in consequence of the bor- 
der troubles which had broken out, he applied for 
and obtained Hancock's transfer to the same field. 
In Kansas, Hancock remained on duty with the 



DOWN TO THE GREAT REBELLION. 



23 



troops in the field or at the depot until about the 
middle of 1858, when he set out under orders to join 
his regiment at the headquarters of the Department 
of Utah. With several officers, a train, and a small 
infantry escort he proceeded to Fort Bridger, accom- 
plishing a march of more than seven hundred miles in 
twenty-six days. At Fort Bridger all the companies 
of the Sixth Infantry were united for the first time in 
sixteen years. Here Hancock resumed the duties of 
regimental quartermaster. The original destination 
of the regiment had been Oregon, where it was to re- 
enforce Colonel Edward J. Steptoe's command, then 
engaged with the Indians ; but it was now ordered 
to proceed to California. The difficulties of equip- 
ping the troops from such a starting point for their 
long and possibly perilous march of eleven hundred 
miles were enough to task even Hancock's abilities 
as quartermaster. He had to deal with half-starved 
animals, broken-down wagons, and limited supplies; 
but by the 21st of August the column was in mo- 
tion, with its train of one hundred and twenty-eight 
wagons, directed upon the formidable and then little- 
known Sierras. Fortunately, no unusual snowstorms 
impeded the movement ; and the troops and trains 
were finally brought into Benicia in even better 
condition than when they started. This result was 
considered at headquarters as reflecting the highest 
honor upon Captain Hancock. In conducting such 
a march Hancock was no mere wagon master, who 
3 



24 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



thinks it enough if he finally, somehow, gets his 
train into camp. His views of duty were always 
lofty ; and his report to the quartermaster general, on 
the close of this expedition, contains a large amount 
of carefully selected and well-ordered information 
regarding the nature of the country traversed, the 
practicable routes of travel, the supply of water 
and of grass, with maps and tables of distances, 
which would have done credit to an engineer officer, 
and which bore testimony to the high conception of 
military service which actuated Hancock in the daily 
performance of duty. 

After his arrival at Benicia, Hancock took a 
leave of absence to enable him to go East and bring 
back his family. Proceeding by way of Tehuantepec, 
he rejoined Mrs. Hancock, passing several weeks in 
Washington, and then set out again by the Isthmus 
of Panama for his post in California. Shortly after 
his arrival he was appointed chief quartermaster 
on the Pacific coast, with headquarters at Los 
Angeles, where he remained from May, 1859, until 
August, 1861. Here he was when the slow dis- 
patches from the East brought the terrible tidings 
of attempted secession and flagrant rebellion. In 
blood and fire a new era had dawned upon the be- 
wildered, awestruck, breathless nation. The people 
of eleven States had renounced their allegiance ; the 
forces of the Union had been beaten and scattered 
in battle; the capital itself was threatened. The 



DOWN TO THE GREAT REBELLION. 25 

armies that menaced it were commanded by men 
who had been trained in the country's service, many 
of them Hancock's fellow-students in the Academy, 
or his comrades in Mexico, Florida, and Kansas. 
What would come of it ? What could come of it but 
destruction to the republic ? 

Whatever should come of it, there was no ques- 
tion in Hancock's mind as to what his part and his 
place would be. For him there was not a moment 
of hesitation or indifference as to the coming strug- 
gle. To the very center of his being he was loyal 
to the Constitution and the laws; and he never 
valued his commission in the army so highly as 
when it gave him a right to be in the front rank of 
their defenders. He knew too many who, like his 
friend Armistead, had reluctantly and painfully 
broken the main ties of their lives in taking the 
other side, to indulge in puerile talk about " traitors 
and sour apple trees." He knew too much of the 
Southern temper to make light of the task before 
the nation, or to predict a holiday parade for the 
Union armies ; but with all his soul he stood by the 
Government, and never did his faith in the ultimate 
triumph of that cause waver, even amid disappoint- 
ment, defeat, disaster, and disgrace. Indeed, I am 
disposed to think that in few things does popular 
opinion regarding the war commit a greater injus- 
tice than in disparaging the devotion of the officers 
of the regular army and in attributing a superior 



26 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

patriotism to the volunteer. Tlie reasons for such a 
notion are not far to seek. The public mmd was 
rightfully impressed by the splendid gallantry with 
which the generous youth of 1861, through their 
own free act and choice, cut themselves off from 
home and friends and rallied around the flag of the 
Union. On the other hand, the officers of the regu- 
lar army were not less naturally looked upon as 
accepting their posts of danger almost as a matter of 
business, the course of their education and their pro- 
fessional interests practically leaving them no choice 
but to fight on the one side or the other. 

I believe, however, that public spirit was ex- 
ceptionally strong among the officers of the regu- 
lar army. They alone, of all the citizens of the 
United States, had been educated and bred under 
circumstances which made their country a con- 
stant object of regard, and which magnified and 
exalted every consideration relating to its honor 
and dignity. Those of us who remember the days 
before the war recall how common was the com- 
plaint that patriotism was dead; that the long reign 
of peace had fostered, at the best, civic virtues only ; 
and that professional ambition and the greed of 
gain had dwarfed nobler and less selfish sentiments. 
There was in those days no instruction given re- 
garding public affairs in the common schools, and 
even in most of our colleges there was no teaching 
of American history. The ordinary citizen of Mas- 



DOWN TO THE GREAT REBELLION. 



27 



sachusetts, of Pennsylvania, of Michigan, encoun- 
tered the Government of the United States literally 
at the door of the post office only. Even the Fourth 
of July had degenerated into a mere barbaric festi- 
val of noise and boyish folly. 

But the young cadet at West Point was instructed 
in his duties to his native land. Every morning he 
saw the flag of the United States run up the staff 
amid the discharge of artillery, and at nightfall he 
heard it saluted as it fell. Under that Hag he per- 
formed his mimic evolutions day by day, and all his 
life was lived in the name of his country. His in- 
structors were officers of the United States, many of 
them men who had shed their blood in the cause. 
How idle, then, to assume that the graduate of West 
Point was less imbued and instinct with patriotic 
sentiment than the graduate of Harvard or of Yale ! 
And when the boy put on the dress of manhood it 
was the uniform of his country which he assumed. 
He was all his life an officer of the United States. 
Duty to the country became the very subject-matter 
of his professional career, the source, at once, and 
the aim, the beginning and the end, of his official 
life. Still, every morning the flag was saluted as it 
rose. Scarcely during the day did he pass out of 
the sight of that gay and glorious emblem of the 
nation's unity. 



CHAPTER III. 

WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 

The nation's necessity was, though in no mean 
sense, Hancock's opportunity. He was now to show 
what he went to West Point for ; why he called him- 
self a soldier ; what his long years of service had 
qualified him to do for his country in the supreme 
crisis of its existence. Looking back upon the period 
which had elapsed since the close of the war with 
Mexico, any one who knew Hancock personally, and 
who is familiar with his career during the rebel- 
lion, must think that the service in which he had 
been engaged was precisely that best suited to de- 
velop the man to his highest capabilities of useful- 
ness in the struggle which was before the nation. 
Absolutely destitute of asceticism, full of hearty fel- 
lowship, fond of ease and given to good cheer, his 
stirring ambition, his intense interest in his pro- 
fession and his high standard of duty rendered 
those fourteen years one long term of military edu- 
cation. I doubt if there was an officer in the United 
States army who during that period — while political, 
social, and industrial forces were preparing the war 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 



29 



of secession — learned so much that was to become of 
use when that great occasion came. Hancock was 
not a man of lofty intellectuality. He had courage 
— fiery, enthusiastic courage; positive, active, unfal- 
tering loyalty to country and comrade ; he had in- 
dustry beyond measure ; the ambition that stirs to 
do great deeds, and be worthy of high promotion ; 
above all, an unrest while anything remained to be 
done; a dissatisfaction with what was incomplete; a 
repugnance at all that was slovenly, clumsy, coarse, 
or half made up. I am disposed to believe that this 
period of Hancock's life was passed to even better 
advantage than if it had comprised active operations 
on the large scale against a powerful enemy. The 
time was to come — all too soon — when lives were to 
be thrown away by thousands and money by millions ; 
when orders of infinite consequence were to be given 
as the result of one glance over a field as restless as 
the ocean after a storm ; when the conjectures of 
an officer on the picket line were to determine the 
movements of twenty thousand men on the morrow. 
Meanwhile the future commander of the Second 
Army Corps, of the left wing at Gettysburg and in 
the Wilderness, was being trained for his high duties 
by conducting the orders and correspo-ndence of a 
military department, fitting out expeditions of a 
company or a squadron, supplying outlying posts, or 
conducting the business of a quartermaster's depot 
on the plains or on the Pacific coast. To a man who 



30 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



is willing to do things just so well that they will pass 
without censure from his superiors, caring himself 
only for pay-day and poker, such a scale of opera- 
tions is cramping and dwarfing. To a man who is 
trying to do everything in the best possible way, 
who is studying his profession and accumulating 
experience against the day of larger things, nothing 
is more instructive, enlarging, and strengthening, if 
not pursued too long. 

It followed that the outbreak of the war found 
Hancock singularly well equipped for the responsi- 
bilities and duties that were to devolve upon him. 
What he knew of infantry and could do with in- 
fantry let Williamsburg and Fredericksburg and 
Gettysburg and the Salient at Spottsylvania testify. 
While he was not a master of the science of logis- 
tics, like Meade and Humphreys, he could conduct 
a long march over bad roads, with artillery and 
trains, better, in my humble judgment, than any 
other officer of the war, Federal or Confederate. 
In the supply of troops, Hancock, as the result of 
thorough training and downright hard work, achieved 
almost the highest possible success. Of the uses of 
cavalry and artillery he knew enough — first, not to 
think that he knew everything, or to lead him to 
interfere in the conduct of those charged with these 
highly specialized services ; and, secondly, to recog- 
nize good work whenever and by whomsoever done. 
General David M. Gregg, the capable commander 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 



31 



of the Second Cavalry Division, on one occasion re- 
marked to me that there was no other officer of high 
rank in the Army of the Potomac under whom it 
was so agreeable to serve as under General Hancock. 
Finally, Hancock's experience before the war 
had made him a perfect master of the Regulations, 
of the procedure proper to every department of the 
army and to every occasion of the service, and of 
the forms of military correspondence and record. 
A master, I say, not a slave ; for, while no man 
understood better the beneficial uses of red tape, no 
one knew better how to cut red tape when the oc- 
casion required. An essayist — Lord Macaulay, I 
think — in satirizing the employment in the English 
language of certain Latin terms, asks us to imagine 
a Roman Consul seated in a back office in Bordeaux, 
a goose-quill over his ear, making out invoices for 
the skippers of merchant vessels. But the union of 
martial and civic functions need not be ludicrous. 
It would be hard to believe that Scipio at Zama 
looked one inch more the commander than Hancock 
at Fredericksburg or Gettysburg, or bore himself 
more knightly and heroically in danger and hard- 
ship, in weariness and wounds ; yet Hancock was 
perhaps the greatest hand at "papers" the army 
ever knew. It is usual to make flings at this sort 
of thing, and to express contempt for regulations 
and red tape. But it is more likely that a mill or 
factory or railroad will be well managed whose ac- 



32 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



counts and correspondence are always in arrears, in 
confusion, in error, than that a brigade or division 
or corps will be well administered under the same 
conditions. The need of order and system is even 
greater in the latter case. This Hancock perfectly 
understood. He deemed it no less important a part 
of his duty to study the state of his command 
through the morning reports and the monthly re- 
turns than on parade or review ; and he knew that 
he could administer a tonic to a sickly regiment 
through the order-book and the letter-book not less 
effectually than at Sunday morning inspection. 

In addition to all his other qualifications for com- 
mand, Hancock enjoyed the advantages of a person 
at once singularly agreeable and singularly im- 
posing. Now at the prime of life, in his thirty- 
eighth year, a perfect blond, standing six feet 
high, powerfully formed yet easy and graceful in 
his movements, with handsome features, strong yet 
without a trace of ferocity or even of habitual 
severity, authority was stamped upon him as upon 
few of the sons of men. He had, too, the con- 
sciousness of a fine presence, never sinking into 
dandyism but keeping him always up to the mark 
m dress and bearing. It was impossible for him to 
degenerate into slouchiness or slovenliness under 
the most trying conditions. Just as a dash of pup- 
pyism is an excellent quality in a junior officer, so a 
shade of physical self-consciousness in an officer of 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 



33 



high rank is certain to give a tone, not only to his 
own carriage and demeanor, but to the troops he 
may command, which the history of war shows to be 
a valuable corrective to certain tendencies toward 
deterioration from long-continued service in the 
field. Always stately and majestic yet never for- 
bidding, except in some tremendous explosion of 
wrath ; well dressed, well mounted ; a soldier better 
deserving the appellation "The Superb" never led 
the march or rode along the line of battle. 

Only one habit marred Hancock's otherwise in- 
variable dignity and impressiveness under all cir- 
cumstances — in his tent, among the camps, on re- 
view ; on the march, whether in advance or retreat ; 
in battle, whether in attack or defense. This was an 
extravagant indulgence, at times, in harsh and pro- 
fane speech. A soldier is not likely to be altogether 
ouc of sympathy with the witty justice who defined 
swearing as " the unnecessary use of profane lan- 
guage." Whatever may be the occasions of civil 
life, no one who knows much of the tremendous 
exigencies of campaign and battle will judge very 
harshly of some extra vehemence of language on 
the part of a commander who feels that the lives of 
his men, and perhaps the destinies of his country, 
hang upon movements which he sees in danger of 
being defeated by the stupidity, the heedlessness, o • 
the indolence of subordinates. Nor will the men 
of the late war, however scrupulous themselves in 



34 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



speech, assert that they held in higher respect any 
officer who never made use of profane language 
than they did many who sometimes indulged in it. 
Yet the traditions of the regular army of the United 
States upon this subject were distinctly bad. The 
camp-fire and mess-room tales regarding the ex- 
travagant profanity of a few generals had set a fash- 
ion among the officers coming into prominence at 
the outbreak of the Rebellion which caused a great 
amount, not merely of very unnecessary, but of very 
silly and weak swearing. With many it amounted 
to an affectation, and that among some of the most 
meritorious, honorable, and generally courteous 
commanders in the service. However this might 
make the unthinking laugh and spice the stories of 
the camp, it made the judicious grieve, for it un- 
questionably was carried so far at times as to impair 
the proper authority and influence of some excellent 
officers. I do not mean to intimate that Hancock 
was "a sinner above all the rest." But he was not 
free from the habit of the army in this respect, and 
indulged in much use of language that was less im- 
pressive than a grave rebuke would have been. 

It remains to speak of but one more trait of 
Hancock's character before we proceed to tell of 
his actual entrance upon the War of the Rebellion. 
I refer to his abounding, unfailing hospitality. In 
her affectionate Reminiscences of General Hancock, 
his wife relates that while they were living at Fort 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 35 

Myers, though their family was small, their table 
was always stretched to its full capacity; and that 
the officers stationed at or visiting the post were ac- 
customed to draw lots for the chairs which were 
placed for as many as could be seated. This story 
truly expresses the custom of Hancock's headquar- 
ters, whether in camp or in the field. The fare 
might be but bacon and hardtack ; but, such as it 
was, every one was welcome to a share. Many hun- 
dreds of surviving officers of the war will remember 
the frank and genial invitation to a friendly glass 
with which an interview in his tent, perhaps not 
wholly pleasant in itself, almost invariably ended. 
Entertainment, indeed, was an instinct with him. I 
well remember his calling a young Confederate offi- 
cer out of a small body of prisoners passing his tent, 
and saying to him with a courtesy that was inex- 
pressibly winning, " Lieutenant, I am sorry to see 
you in trouble, pray take a glass of whisky and 
water with me." When, in August, 1864, I was a 
prisoner in the hands of the enemy, Lieutenant- 
General Hill sent a staff officer to say that he had 
given orders to have me treated with all possible 
consideration, because Hancock had always been 
so kind to his (Hill's) soldiers, when prisoners. 

A civilian might regard such a matter as of little 
importance from a military point of view, but every 
soldier will know better. It has been said that half 
the victories of diplomacy are won at the dinner- 



36 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

table; and likewise, while a first-rate soldier may be 
a curmudgeon, and while a commander may choose 
to rule entirely by mere force, that man who knows 
how to mingle diplomacy with authority, to smooth 
the asperities of service, and to conciliate universal 
regard, has a wholly additional source of power in 
handling large masses of men. Soldiers are punc- 
tilious, sensitive, and quick to take offense. Next 
to absolute justice, nothing goes further to antici- 
pate and avoid causes of dispute and to keep troops 
united, harmonious, and enthusiastic, than courtesy, 
suavity, and hospitality at headquarters. 

Such, in his character, bearing, and qualifications 
for service, was Hancock, when, at his own request, 
he was ordered East in the summer of 1861, that he 
might take an active part in the war which had 
broken out amid direful portents on the Atlantic 
slope. Upon his arrival in Washington, it was first 
intended that he should be assigned to duty as chief 
quartermaster on the staff of General Robert An- 
derson, of Fort Sumter fame, who had been appoint- 
ed to the command of the Union troops in Ken- 
tucky. When one remembers that Philip Sheridan 
was sent away from the field to buy horses for the 
army on the eve of the battle of Shiloh, he can be- 
lieve that almost anything was possible to the men 
who were then selecting chiefs for the Union forces 
and assigning the officers of the regular army to 
their several stations. Fortunately such a blunder 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 



37 



was not committed in Hancock's case. His day for 
quartermaster service, valuable as that training had 
been to him, was past. So manifestly was he a 
commander in every lineament, in every motion, 
that it was seen to be absurd to keep such a soldier 
upon staff duty when an army of hundreds of thou- 
sands was to be officered; and, on the 23d of Sep- 
tember, he was made a Brigadier-General of Volun- 
teers, and assigned to the Army of the Potomac. 
In the organization of divisions, which took place 
during the winter, Hancock, to his great gratifica- 
tion, found himself commanding a brigade in the 
division of William F. Smith, universally known as 
Baldy Smith, who had been a student with him at 
the Academy, and with whom his relations had al- 
ways been most intimate and cordial. General 
Smith, an officer of engineers, enjoyed a high repu- 
tation for intellectual ability, and not less for good 
fellowship and geniality. With such an agreeable 
association on the one side, and, on the other, with 
the difficult task before him of shaping and temper- 
ing four raw regiments * into a perfect instrument 
of war, which should not fail under the severest 
strain of military duty or break in the fiercest 



* Fifth Wisconsin, Forty-ninth Pennsylvania, Forty-third New 
York, Sixth Maine. General Hancock's staff consisted at this time 
of his brother, Captain John Hancock, Assistant Adjutant-General, 
and Lieutenants W. G. Mitchell, Isaac B. Parker, and Charles S. 
McEntee, aids. 



38 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

shock of battle, the first winter of the great rebel- 
lion passed rapidly away. 

No commander ever more carefully prepared in 
camp for success in the field than did Hancock, here 
and through all his subsequent career. Most, per- 
haps, think of him as a kind of meteor on the battle- 
field, an object of admiration or of terror, flashnig 
hither and thither, achieving his triumphs by sheer 
brilliancy of bearing, force of intuition, and mysteri- 
ous power over men. In fact, it was with infinite 
labor that he forged the weapon his hand was to 
wield with such effect. He knew that the greater 
the force exerted the more likely was the sword 
to break under the blow, unless it were perfectly 
wrought ; and it was with care and pains inexpress- 
ible that he shaped and tempered it for the conflict. 
If at Williamsburg, in his first encounter with the 
enemy, he met and easily vanquished the Confeder- 
ate force sent against him, led on one wing by D. 
H. Hill, and on the other by Jubal Early, it was not 
more by reason of the great tactical skill, calm cour- 
age, and majestic bearing which stamped upon him 
McClellan's epithet, " Superb," than of the training 
to which his troops had been subjected. Of Han- 
cock in the winter camps of i86r, two things espe- 
cially require to be said : 

First, while he was a strict disciplinarian, he was 
incapable of any of those silly brutalities which a 
few officers of the regular army who were set over 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 



39 



volunteer regiments, and many volunteer officers 
who thought they were imitating regular-army meth- 
ods, practiced during the first year of the war. 

Second, although a "regular" in every fiber of 
his being, Hancock was altogether destitute of that 
snobbishness regarding volunteers which was ex- 
hibited by so many small minds, in so many great 
places, during the first year of the rebellion. He 
recognized the fact that the war was to be waged 
by volunteers; and that, however much the regular 
army had to give to the vast masses of earnest sol- 
diers swarming in from East and from West to the 
defense of the Union, it was, after all, these men 
who were to bear the heat and burden of the great 
conflict. He saw that it was of supreme importance 
to promote the self-respect and self-confidence of 
volunteer regiments; to lead them to think that 
they could do anything, and were the equals of any- 
body ; and that to be everlastingly talking about 
the regular army, bewailing the lack of its methods 
and forms, instituting odious comparisons, and 
sneering at the deficiencies of the new troops, was 
a very poor way of accomplishing that object. 

Hancock not only never sneered at volunteers — 
he did not, incredible as it may seem, even patron- 
ize them. He made them feel — by his evident re- 
spect, his hearty greeting, his warm approval of 
everything they did well — that he regarded them as 
being just as fully, just as truly, just as honorably, 



.Q GENERAL HANCOCK. 

soldiers of the United States Army as if they had 
belonged to the old Sixth Infantry. Such was the 
spirit in which Hancock met his new command. 
We know with what assiduity, patience, and good 
feeling, what almost pathetic eagerness to learn and 
imitate, the volunteers of 1861 sought to fit them- 
selves for their part in the great struggle. Han- 
cock's thorough and cordial acceptance of volun- 
teers was seen, again, in his choice of staff officers 
throughout the war. Even after he had become a 
corps commander, when any captain in the service 
would have been proud to come at his call, he 
showed no disposition to prefer an officer of the 
regular army as such. Except Morgan, whom he 
inherited from Sumner and Couch, no officer of the 
regular army ever held an important position on his 
staff. Mitchell and Bingham, Batchelder and Wil- 
son, Brownson and Livermore, Miller and Parker 
were good enough for him. 

The work which Hancock had done during the 
winter of i86i-'62, in preparing his enthusiastic 
volunteers for active service, was soon to be put to 
the test. Smith's division formed a part of the 
Fourth Corps, which General Keyes took to the 
Peninsula of Virginia in the spring of 1862. Dur- 
ing the long and discouraging halt before Yorktown 
Hancock's troops were not engaged; but at Wil- 
liamsburg, where on the 5th of May our troops 
overtook the retreating enemy, Hancock was given 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 



41 



his first opportunity, which he improved in such a 
manner as at once to make his name famous 
throughout the land. After several hours had been 
wasted in objectless and useless fighting in front of 
Fort Magruder, Hancock was dispatched with five 
regiments — three of his own, and two of Davidson's 
brigade — to cross Cub Dam Creek, on our extreme 
right, and, if possible, gain the enemy's rear. The 
movement was executed cautiously but promptly; 
and at noon Hancock occupied the redoubt upon 
the Confederate side which commanded the narrow 
mill-bridge across the creek, and sent word to head- 
quarters of his success, nothing doubting that he 
would speedily be re-enforced to a degree which 
would make it practicable to advance into the 
enemy's rear, which had by inadvertence been left 
completely open, and thus cut off Longstreet's di- 
vision. But divided counsels were the order of this 
day. Keyes, Sumner, and Heintzelman had all the 
morning been jarring with each other at the Whit- 
taker House; McClellan was back at Yorktown ; 
and for hours no re-enforcements were sent. At 
last the enemy, discerning Hancock's threatening 
attitude, directed against him a column under Gen- 
erals Jubal Early and D. H. Hill, both afterward 
famous in the war. Hancock — to secure his own 
position, as well as to make ready for a prompt ad- 
vance when he should be re-enforced — had occupied 
a second redoubt twelve hundred yards nearer Wil- 



42 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



liamsburg, and still more directly threatening the 
enemy's rear. From this point he was already 
demonstrating against two other redoubts, when he 
perceived he was to be attacked by Early and Hill. 
Falling back in perfect order from his most ad- 
vanced position, upon finding his right flank threat- 
ened, he halted his command, which, though for the 
first time in action, conducted itself with the great- 
est steadiness, and, when the enemy were within 
close range, received them with two clean volleys of 
musketry, followed up by a charge along the line. 
Hill was wounded, and his troops driven back in 
disorder. Early sought to retrieve the fortunes of 
the day, but was swept off the field by the steady 
advance of Hancock. In twenty-three minutes the 
affair was over. The action had been short, sharp, 
and decisive. The Confederates left in Hancock's 
hands a battle-flag and one hundred and sixty pris- 
oners. So complete had been their discomfiture, 
that they made no further attempt to molest Han- 
cock in his position. After the action was at an 
end re-enforcements arrived, and General Smith 
himself came upon the ground; but it was already 
late, and no attempt was made to pursue the advan- 
tage gained. When night fell, Longstreet withdrew 
from his untenable position, and continued his inter- 
rupted retreat up the Peninsula toward Richmond. 

The action at Williamsburg made Hancock's 
reputation. He had shown enterprise, audacity. 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 



43 



and prudence in a critical movement, with a body 
of troops altogether insufficient to the purpose for 
which it had been dispatched. In the action which 
resulted, he had displayed perfect command over his 
men, high tactical skill, and decisive energy — energy, 
that is, applied in exactly the right way and at ex- 
actly the right moment. He had defeated and 
routed a superior force of the enemy, led by two of 
their ablest captains. It was no fault of his that the 
absence of the commander in chief and the divided 
counsels at the Whittaker House prevented the de- 
struction of the enemy. No wonder that McClellan 
telegraphed that night, "Hancock was superb." In 
his report on the operations of the day. General 
Smith wrote : " The brilliancy of the plan of battle, 
the coolness of its execution, the seizing of the 
proper instant for changing from the defensive to 
the offensive, the steadiness of the troops engaged, 
and the completeness of the victory, are subjects 
to which I earnestly call the attention of the com- 
mander in chief for his just praise." 

With such a striking opening of his career upon 
the Peninsula, it might well have been expected that, 
in the succession of terrific battles which took place 
before McClellan was finally driven away to the 
James River, Hancock's brigade would have found 
many opportunities to distinguish itself, and to exalt 
the fame of its commander. But, by one of those 
curious fortunes which mark the course of war, it 



44 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



came about that this excellent body of troops passed 
through the entire campaign without once again be- 
coming severely engaged with the enemy. It lay 
under arms within sound of the terrific conflict 
which raged for hours on the afternoon of the 31st 
of May and on the morning of the ist of June, when 
the corps of Keyes, Heintzelman, and later of Sum- 
ner, were wrestling with nearly the whole force of 
Johnston's army. During the Seven Days' Battles — 
while other divisions and brigades were frightfully 
cut up in one action, only to be engaged the next 
day, and the next — Hancock's command was but 
once called to meet the enemy, and then in a minor 
affair. This was on the fatal 27th of June, when 
Porter's corps, re-enforced by Slocum's division, 
was bearing the brunt of the tremendous attack of 
Stonewall Jackson's divisions, then just arrived from 
the Valley. At a critical moment the enemy made 
an attempt to break through Hancock's advanced 
position at Garnett's Farm, close down by the 
Chickahominy, hoping thus to cut the communica- 
tions between Porter and the remaining corps of 
McClellan, already under orders to retreat to the 
James. The attacking force was commanded by 
General Robert Toombs. Hancock's dispositions 
for defense — both with his infantry, re-enforced by 
two regiments from the Vermont brigade, and with 
artillery which had been sent to him for the pur- 
pose — were of the same masterly character as at 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 



45 



Williamsburg; and, after a short contest, the enemy 
was driven from the field. During the night Por- 
ter's beaten divisions crossed the Chickahominy and 
took up the route for the James. Hancock was 
withdrawn to his former position at Golding's, in- 
trusted with the duty of covering the retreat. Late 
in the day, as he was retiring under orders, another, 
but comparatively slight, attack was made by the 
adventurous enemy, which was easily thrown off, 
only one of Hancock's regiments being engaged.* 
On the 29th, Hancock's troops were in support of 
Sumner, at Savage Station, and on the 30th took 
their share of the tremendous shelling which was 
inflicted upon Smith's division at White Oak Swamp. 
Immediately after this they were sent forward to 
the James River, and were thus out of reach at the 
great battle of Malvern Hills, on the ist of July. 

But while, as related, Hancock's brigade had 
borne far less than its proportional share of the 
fighting on the Peninsula, the reputation of its com- 
mander had steadily advanced, as the result of his 
prompt execution of orders, the discipline his troops 
had exhibited in camp and upon the march, and his 
own fine bearing and intelligent action during the 
successive exigencies of the campaign. Franklin's 
corps was one of the last to arrive at Centreville for 

* In this attack Colonel L. Q. C. Lamar, afterward Secretary 
of the Interior and a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United 
States, fell a prisoner into Hancock's hands. 



46 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the re- enforcement of Pope's army, in August; so 
that again Hancock's command failed to be en- 
gaged with the enemy in actions which are now of 
the highest historical interest. Still again, in the 
Antietam campaign, Hancock's brigade was destined 
to be kept out of the fight in a truly remarkable 
degree. At Crampton's Pass, on the 14th of Sep- 
tember, it only exchanged artillery fire with the 
enemy, and at Antietam, on the 17th, it supported a 
powerful battery of many guns on the right of the 
Union line, without entering further into the action. 
Franklin had, indeed, on coming up about noon, 
been desirous of throwing in his powerful corps at 
the Dunker Church, to retrieve the fortunes of the 
day ; but Sumner, who had been profoundly shocked 
by the losses of his own divisions, especially Sedg- 
wick's, forbade the movement. 

It has been said that Hancock's brigade was 
engaged at Antietam only in support of artillery. 
After Sumner's refusal to allow Franklin to deliver 
an attack at the Dunker Church — the scene of Sedg- 
wick's terrible repulse — the Sixth Corps remained 
inactive during the afternoon of the 17th of Sep- 
tember. For Hancock personally, however, much 
was yet in store. At noon of that momentous day 
— the bloodiest single day in the annals of the great 
war — tidings were brought to headquarters that the 
gallant Richardson, commanding the First Division of 
Sumner's Second Corps, had fallen in the battle 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 47 

around Piper's House. At once Hancock was sent 
for in haste, and from McClellan's own lips received 
the order to proceed with all dispatch to Richard- 
son's line, and assume command of that division. 
Though scarcely another brigade commander had 
been so little engaged in action since the army took 
the field in April, there had not been a moment's 
hesitation in selecting the officer who should suc- 
ceed to the vacant division when the news arrived 
of Richardson's mortal wound; nor on Hancock's 
part was there the slightest doubt or fear upon re- 
ceiving that sudden and unexpected promotion on 
the field of battle. It is generally more or less of 
an experiment to advance even a capable and effi- 
cient brigadier to the charge of a division. The 
natural range of his powers may be found to have 
been exceeded. Even should he in time grow up to 
the position, it is most likely that the new command 
will be exercised at first with too much either of 
timidity or of rashness, with somewhat less than a full 
grasp of the situation, with comparative feebleness 
of authority and influence over the unfamiliar body. 
No such painful interval of self-distrust, or of real 
inadequacy to new and larger responsibilities, marked 
Hancock's successive promotions. The very day he 
was advanced from captain and quartermaster to 
brigadier-general, he was, in every sense, a general 
officer, confident of his powers, rejoicing in the 
exercise of his functions, and thoroughly master of 



48 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

himself, his place, his staff, and his troops. An hour 
after he rode down the line, at Antietam, to take up 
the sword that had fallen from Richardson's dying 
hand, no one could have told — he himself hardly 
knew — that he had not commanded a division for 
years. So thoroughly had he prepared himself for 
promotion during his service with his brigade, so 
sure was he of his powers, that he stepped forward 
to the higher command upon the field of battle, 
amid its wreck and disaster, without a moment of 
hesitation or of doubt, and at once became the 
leader of the division, as fully and perfectly as Sum- 
ner in his time had been, as Richardson but just 
now had been. The staff knew it; the troops felt it. 
Every officer in his place, and every man in the 
ranks was aware, before the sun went down, that he 
belonged to Hancock's Division. 

The body of troops to which Hancock had been 
sent was one worthy of any commander. It was the 
division which Sumner had organized and drilled 
during the winter of i86i-'62, and which still showed 
in its every part the impress of the powerful hand 
which had first shaped and molded it. When Sum- 
ner was appointed to the Second Corps, Richardson 
took his division and led it with great credit during 
the campaign on the Peninsula. It passed through 
its baptism of fire at Fair Oaks on Sunday morning, 
where it lost eight hundred and thirty-eight men in 
a close, fierce, but victorious contest. Two of its 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIITAM. 



49 



brigades — French's and Meagher's — crossed the 
Chickahominy to the support of Porter late in the 
afternoon of the 27th of June; and it was behind 
their undaunted line that Porter's badly shattered 
troops were re-formed. The division had been en- 
gaged at Allen's Farm on the morning of the 29th, 
and later in the day had taken an important part in 
the brief but sharp action at Savage Station. It 
had helped to hold the bridge with Franklin at 
White Oak Swamp on the 30th; and on the ist of 
July, two of its brigades — Caldwell's and Meagher's 
— had gone to the support of Porter and Couch on 
the Heights of Malvern, and had contributed largely 
to the final repulse of the enemy on that ever-mem- 
orable day. At Antietam, it had been brought by 
Sumner across the creek, on the morning of which 
we write, and had been directed straight on Piper's 
house, where it became engaged in a sanguinary 
contest which resulted in driving the enemy out of 
the famous Sunken Road. It had lost eleven hun- 
dred and sixty-five men, of whom — although the 
fighting had been close, and charges and counter- 
charges had been made — only sixteen were among 
the " missing." It had lost, besides its gallant 
commander, many valuable ofiticers, the casualties 
of the Irish Brigade of Meagher being especially 
heavy. The division had in this action captured 
four hundred prisoners and nine Confederate flags. 
Such had been the experience of the body of 



50 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

troops to the command of which Hancock was now 
assigned. That experience had been singularly for- 
tunate if considered with reference to future effi- 
ciency. Partly by the chance of war, partly as the 
result of the courage and discipline of the troops 
and the exceptional capacity of the regimental com- 
manders — notably Colonels Barlow, Brooke, Mc- 
Keen, Nugent, Cross, and Zook — the division had 
never been borne backward in battle. It had never 
once had its line broken. It had been uniformly 
victorious ; and, while it had sustained severe losses, 
it had never, except only in the case of the Irish 
Brigade at Antietam, lost blood to fainting, or sus- 
tained any of those shattering blows which take the 
life out of even the best troops. An equally fortu- 
nate initiation into the dreadful experiences of war 
had befallen few divisions. Nor was its future serv- 
ice, from Antietam forward, destined to be any less 
honorable, although its day of uniform good fortune 
was over and past. It was, indeed, to experience 
the very extremity of loss and disaster ; and was 
to close its career, in 1865, with the proud, though 
melancholy, record of two thousand two hundred 
and thirty-seven men killed and eleven thousand 
seven hundred and twenty-four men wounded in 
battle ; and was to go into history as the division 
of Sunday morning at Fair Oaks, of the Sunken 
Road at Antietam, of the Stone Wall at Fredericks- 
burg, of the Wheat Field at Gettysburg, of the 



WILLIAMSBURG TO ANTIETAM. 



51 



Salient at Spottsylvania, of the closing fight at 
Farmville ; as the division which had been com- 
manded by five such soldiers as Edwin V. Sumner, 
Israel B. Richardson, Winfield S. Hancock, Francis 
C. Barlow, and Nelson A. Miles. 

When Hancock rode over the field in the early 
afternoon of the 17th of September, to take com- 
mand of his new division, the battle on the right 
was over, although none outside general headquar- 
ters suspected it. The troops lay in momentary 
expectation of renewing the attack in which already 
ten thousand men had fallen. Every now and then 
the bustle of the staff presaged new combinations, or 
the movement of troops to fill gaps in the line of 
battle was taken to mean that hot work was at once 
to begin. At intervals the artillery broke out in 
furious cannonading all along the line, or here and 
there two ambitious battery commanders tested the 
range of their guns and the skill of their cannoniers 
in a duel across the crouching lines of infantry. It 
was not amid the pomp of the review, with bands 
playing and officers saluting, but on the trampled 
battlefield strewn with bloody stretchers and wreck 
of caissons and ambulances, the dead and dying 
thick around, the wounded still limping and crawl- 
ing to the rear, with shells shrieking through the 
air, that Hancock first met and greeted the good 
regiments he was to lead in a score of battles. The 
lines were ragged from shot and shell ; the uniforms 



52 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

were rent and soiled from hedge and ditch ; the 
bands were engaged in carrying off the wounded or 
assisting the surgeons at their improvised hospitals. 

The remainder of the day passed uncertainly, 
uneasily. The crash and clamor of Burnside's long- 
delayed fight, away down on the left, aroused ex- 
pectation to its height ; but this again died down as 
the Ninth Corps fell back before the Confederate 
troops arriving from Harper's Ferry. Pleasanton's 
batteries pressing forward in the center, supported 
by a few battalions of regulars, seemed like a renewal 
of the combat, while a gallant dash of the Seventh 
Maine, made from the front of Slocum's division, 
startled both the Union and the Confederate lines. 
But the day wore slowly away without any order for 
the renewal of the battle on the right, and when 
darkness came on Antietam passed into history. All 
the next day the two armies lay confronting each 
other without a collision ; and during the following 
night Lee, his army and his trains intact, recrossed 
the Potomac into Virginia. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FREDERICKSBURG. 

On the 19th of September, two days after the 
doubtful battle of Antietam, the Second Corps 
moved to Harper's Ferry and took up a strong 
position on Bolivar Heights. Here the corps was 
destined to remain for a considerable period, while 
the country chafed at the inaction of the army 
which had been trumpeted as winning a great and 
glorious victory. Early in October General Sumner 
was relieved in the command of the corps by Gen- 
eral Darius N. Couch who had won much distinc- 
tion on the Peninsula at the head of a division 
of the Fourth Corps. The only exciting incident 
which attended the long rest on Bolivar Heights 
was a reconnoissance conducted by Hancock with 
his division, upon the i6th of October, adown the 
valley to Charlestown, with a view to discovering 
whether the enemy was there in force. The re- 
connoissance developing nothing but cavalry and 
artillery, Hancock withdrew his troops to camp the 
same night. On the 30th of October, McClellan, 
urgently pressed by the popular impatience at his 



54 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



long delay, began his next and his last forward 
movement with the Army of the Potomac. The 
Second Corps, in the lead, crossed the Shenandoah, 
and, passing round the base of Loudon Heights into 
the valley, moved along the Blue Ridge, occupying 
successively the several passes over the mountains 
westward of the line of march, reaching the little 
village at the foot of Snicker's Gap on the evening 
of the 3d, and, on the 4th, after an artillery duel 
with Stuart, occupied Upperville. 

During the movement along the Blue Ridge, and 
in the few days which followed, a curious psycho- 
logical phenomenon appeared. Although this was 
one of the best-disciplined commands of the army, 
with a high repute for good order, a mania seized 
the troops for killing sheep. On the Peninsula 
there had been no sheep to kill ; and, while on the 
march to Antietam, our men had scrupulously re- 
spected the loyalty of Western Maryland. But 
when the fat and fleecy flocks of the country 
through which we were now called to pass came in 
sight, discipline for the moment gave way, at least 
quoad mutton. At first the night was taken for 
forays; but soon the passion rose to absolute fury. 
In vain did officers storm and swear; in vain was 
the saber used freely over the heads of the offenders 
who were caught ; in vain, even, did the provost 
guard of one division turn about and fire ball-car- 
tridges, from the road, at fellows who deliberately 



FREDERICKSBURG. 



55 



left the ranks to go across the fields. General 
Couch was outraged; he instructed each division 
commander to assemble a court martial for the trial 
of these offenders; and soon, every evening after 
coming into camp, three courts were in session in 
the Second Corps, with sheep-stealers before them, 
and sharp and summary were the punishments in- 
flicted; but it was all to no purpose — the killing 
went on as bad as ever. 

Of the three division commanders, Hancock was 
peculiarly sensitive to the slightest imputation of 
indiscipline. Of all three it was he who issued the 
sternest orders and swore the loudest oaths. One 
day, having observed some soldiers of the Irish 
Brigade, after falling out of ranks, steal around a 
bit of wood, manifestly bent on plunder, he deter- 
mined to make an example. Accordingly, he left 
the column with his staff, and, galloping around 
the wood from the opposite side, came upon the 
group gathered about an unfortunate victim upon 
which one of the number was proceeding to make 
anatomical observations. The less guilty members 
of the party caught a glimpse of the coming doom 
in time to climb over a high stone fence and es- 
cape ; but upon the principal offender, taken in 
flagrante delictu, Hancock pounced with drawn 
sword and eyes flashing fire. Down on his knees 
went the wretch, scared by the general's aspect. 
" Arrah, dear general, don't be the death of me; 
5 



56 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

I didn't do it, indade I didn't." "You infernal 
liar," shouted the general, " what do you mean by 
telling me that? I saw you, you scoundrel! I'll 
teach you to disobey orders ; I'll teach you to kill 
sheep ! " And with this, crushing out the last hope 
of poor Paddy, he flourished his sword as if about 
to begin execution, when, in the most opportune 
moment, up jumped the innocent subject of the con- 
troversy, and, giving vent to its feelings in a qua- 
vering ba-a ! ran off, while, amid the shouts of the 
staff, the general put up his saber and rode away. 

Of all the offenders in this respect, the Irish 
Brigade received the most blame; but there is some 
reason to accept the indignant disclaimer of their 
commander, who declared that a large number of 
the sheepskins found in his camps had really been 
placed there by the men of the Fifth New Hamp- 
shire, after they had eaten the carcasses. Strangely 
enough, this passion for killing sheep disappeared 
as quickly as it had appeared; and never afterward, 
so far as the writer knows, did anything of the sort 
occur to tarnish the good name of the Second 
Corps. It was an epidemic, coming and going inex- 
plicably, in flat contradiction to the general charac- 
ter of the troops, and, while it lasted, affecting only 
sheep, of all the animal creation. 

On the 6th of November the Second Corps 
reached Rectortovvn. It was while the troops were 
in this camp that, on the night of the 7th of No- 



FREDERICKSBURG. 



57 



vember, the order arrived from Washington which 
relieved General McClellan finally from the com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac, which was given 
to General Burnside. In the grief and indignation 
with which, on their arrival at Warrenton, the sol- 
diers received the news that the commander in 
whom they delighted was again taken away from 
them, the Second Corps shared fully; but that grief 
and indignation never for a moment affected the 
loyalty of the corps or impaired its discipline. The 
corps and division commanders were not the sort 
of men to permit this. To Hancock, in especial, the 
removal of McClellan was a blow keenly felt, for he 
was deeply attached to his chief, with whom he had 
been a great favorite ever since Williamsburg; but 
to all open complaints or mutinous remarks, then 
too common and unfortunately encouraged by some 
high officers, he had but a single reply, " We are 
serving our country, and not any man." 

The change of command not unnaturally result- 
ed in a brief delay at Warrenton. Burnside had be- 
fore him two courses. The one was to move direct- 
ly forward, crossing the Rappahannock, as Meade 
was to do a year later after Gettysburg, to fight 
Lee at Brandy Station or Culpeper, should he be 
found there in force, or, failing that, to cross, in 
turn, the Rapidan, and take the direct route to 
Richmond through the Wilderness and Spottsyl- 
vania. The other course was to move to the left 



58 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



and seize Fredericksburg, on the right bank of the 
lower Rappahannock, before Lee should apprehend 
his design. It was the latter course which Burnside 
decided to take. Its success required three good, 
stiff, though not excessive, days' marches, on the 
part of at least the leading corps, with prompt co- 
operation from Washington in the way of providing 
rations, beef cattle, and, above all, pontoons, at 
Acquia Creek. Of these latter needs, General Hal- 
leck, at Washington, was duly notified. 

The Second Corps, still in advance, left Warren- 
ton on the 15th, and, marching steadily, though with 
all-night rests, reached Falmouth, on the left bank 
of the Rappahannock opposite Fredericksburg, in 
the early afternoon of the 17th. The little city of 
Fredericksburg was at this moment occupied only 
by a regiment of cavalry, four companies of infan- 
try, and a light battery. But, by another of those 
miserable blunders which mar the whole history of 
the war, each one of them costing its hundreds or 
thousands of lives, the pontoons were not on hand 
when the column arrived, nor, indeed, until the 25th 
of the month. During all this time, the troops of 
the enemy were coming up to the right bank of the 
river, in plain view, and fortifying at their leisure 
positions which were a month later to be fruit- 
lessly assaulted with terrific loss. Meanwhile the 
entire Army of the Potomac had come up and 
been extended along the Rappahannock. Han- 



FREDERICKSBURG. 



59 



cock's division was stationed behind Falmouth with 
headquarters at the Washington House.* 

Hancock's division on the eve of Fredericksburg 
was constituted as follows : First Brigade, Brigadier- 
General John C. Caldwell : Fifth New Hampshire ; 
Seventh, Sixty-first, and Sixty-fourth New York ; 
Eighty -first and One Hundred and Forty -fifth 
Pennsylvania. Second Brigade, Brigadier-General 
Thomas Francis Meagher: Sixty-third, Sixty-ninth, 
and Eighty-eighth New York; Twenty-eighth Mas- 
sachusetts; One Hundred and Sixteenth Pennsyl- 
vania. Third Brigade, Colonel Samuel K. Zook : 
Second Delaware ; Fifty-second, Fifty-seventh, and 
Sixty-sixth New York ; Fifty-third Pennsylvania ; 
Twenty-seventh Connecticut. The Division staff 
consisted of John Hancock, Assistant Adjutant Gen- 
eral ; Hoyt, Assistant Quartermaster; Balloch, Com- 
missary of Subsistence ; and Mitchell, Parker, and 
Miller, Aids ; Rorty and Ritzius, Acting Aids. 

The town of Fredericksburg, as was evident to 
all who looked across the river, could not be seri- 
ously held by the enemy, for it lay on the lower of 
the two banks of the Rappahannock, commanded by 
the artillery with which the Falmouth or Stafford 
side was soon lined. But there was small utility in 
carrying the town while the enemy held the hills in 

* Here it was that Hancock received his promotion in the 
regular army from captain to major and assistant quartermaster, 
November 30, 1863. 



6o GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the rear. The Confederate troops had no use for 
the town, except to prevent a surprise upon the 
hills; the Union troops had no use for it whatever 
except as they might occupy it for a momentary 
cover, while forming their columns for an assault 
upon the hills. But a direct attack upon the enemy 
through Fredericksburg was full of difficulties. Be- 
tween the town and the hills ran a deep ditch, or 
canal, which had been used to carry water from the 
river above to certain mills upon its course and then 
emptied into the river below the town. The hills 
themselves, which curved around Fredericksburg 
approaching the Rappahannock at either end, were 
admirably adapted for defense, and had been strong- 
ly fortified since the arrival of the Union troops 
upon the Stafford side. The plain, which our army 
emerging from the town must cross, was wide 
enough and clear enough to allow the utmost effects 
of artillery and infantry fire from the hills and from 
a sunken road and a stone wall which ran along 
their base at the only practicable point for assault. 
Such was the prospect which greeted the eyes of 
General Burnside and his troops every clear day 
from about the middle of November till the loth of 
December, 1862. Nevertheless, Burnside decided to 
cross into the city and carry the hills by a resolute 
attack should the enemy make a stand there. At 
least that was the plan which he afterward claimed 
to have followed. So vacillating, however, were his 



FREDERICKSBURG. 6l 

moods, so contradictory the orders given, that it 
must always remain doubtful how much of this was 
an afterthought, of the truth of which he had per- 
suaded himself. Whatever his real intentions were, 
if, indeed, he had any definite purpose, he, on the 
day last named, directed General Sumner, com- 
manding the Right Grand Division, consisting of 
the Second and Ninth Corps, to prepare to cross 
the river and occupy Fredericksburg. Coincidently 
with his crossing, Franklin was to cross with the 
Left Grand Division, three miles below the town, 
and threaten Lee's communications with Richmond. 
One thing, and one thing only, favored the oper- 
ation undertaken on the nth of December. This 
was that Jackson, with a powerful column, was 
many miles down the river, awaiting a possible 
crossing in that direction. But to take advantage 
of this it was necessary that whatever was to be 
attempted should be done promptly and decisively. 
Our space will not serve to tell the miserable story 
of the long delays which beset the crossing by the 
Lacy House, owing to the fact that General Burn- 
side trusted to the effect of more than one hundred 
guns, placed along the bank, to drive the Confeder- 
ates out of the houses on the opposite side, and 
thus enable the bridges to be laid. Hancock's 
division had been ordered to cover the engineers 
and pontoon-men at their work; but these and 
Hancock's regiments alike suffered helplessly from 



62 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the riflemen of the enemy, in cellars and pits along 
the shore, who defied the utmost fury of the can- 
nonade. Hour after hour of precious time was 
wasted in efforts, manifestly futile, to lay the 
bridges under these conditions. It was not until 
the afternoon was well advanced that the thing was 
done that should have been done at break of day. 
Volunteers from Howard's division at a signal 
rushed down the banks, jumped into the pontoons, 
pushed off under a heavy fire, and, rowing straight 
across, formed under the bank ; then, with a rush, 
carried the river street and smoked the enemy out 
of their defenses. Upon this the bridges were 
quickly laid, as might have been done m the early 
morning, and the remainder of Howard's troops 
crossed into the city and cleared the nearest streets. 
But by that time the short winter day was at its 
close, and nothing more could be done. Mean- 
while, Jackson had taken the alarm and was hurry- 
ing back to join Longstreet. During the night 
most of the remaining troops of both wings were 
thrown over; and the dawn of the 12th of Decem- 
ber found Sumner's column in Fredericksburg, on 
the right, while Franklin's six divisions, upon the 
left, held enough ground beyond their bridges 
below the town to enable them to manoeuvre. 

And now, if anything was to be done it should have 
been done at once ; done according to some carefully 
studied plan, of which all commanders should have 



TALMOUTH 



THE Kimr 

AT 

OERICKSiUE^ 

DecIS^"^ 1862 




FREDERICKSBURG. 



63 



been fully advised. But, in truth, Burnside was not 
ready. He had hoped to see Lee retreat from be- 
fore the powerful army which menaced him. He 
had expected nothing less; he was prepared for 
nothing else. Inasmuch as Lee, who could not pos- 
sibly have asked for a stronger position in which to 
fight the impending battle, showed no sign of re- 
treating, Burnside, in dire perplexity, wavered be- 
tween one plan and another, now preparing to draw 
all of Sumner's troops down along the river bank, 
to join Franklin (which was what should have been 
done) ; now discussing the chances of a direct attack 
by Sumner, until night came. The next morning 
found the river, the town, and the plains beyond 
covered with dense fog, and still Burnside had no 
definite plans; yet, as the morning wore on, orders 
were issued from his headquarters which brought 
about a great battle, alike on the right and on the 
left. Let us first dismiss from our narrative the 
operations of Franklin. That officer advanced his 
troops against the enemy; broke for a moment at 
one point through Jackson's line, and was then 
driven back to the river with considerable loss. 
The battle here was on approximately even terms 
as to position. The attack failed, as Burnside as- 
serted, because Franklin did not put in enough of 
his troops and did not press his advantage with 
energy. It failed, as Franklin asserted, because of 
unintelligible and contradictory orders. 



64 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

On the right, there is no question of what was 
done that day or any complaint of want of energy 
and desperate determination. Yet the orders to 
Sumner were strange enough, as orders to fight a 
great battle on. They were to " push a column of a 
division or more along the plank and telegraph roads, 
with a view to seizing the heights in the rear of the 
town." Considering that six divisions of the Right 
Grand Division, with three from the Center, were to 
become engaged in a desperate battle, resulting in 
the loss of eight to nine thousand men, these in- 
structions can scarcely be deemed explicit or com- 
prehensive. At any rate, the thing ordered was 
attempted. At noon the skirmishers of French's 
(Third) Division advanced, driving before them the 
enemy's pickets ; and in a few minutes more his 
brigades emerged from the town, in three succes- 
sive lines, and made for the crest known as Marye's 
Heights, where a road from the river runs up over 
the hills. And now appeared the first of the fa- 
tal obstacles which beset this ill-conceived and 
ill-omened enterprise. As the Union lines, lashed 
with shot and shell from a half mile of batteries, 
made their way unfalteringly across the plain, they 
came upon the deep ditch, or canal, of which Couch 
the day before had given Burnside a warning that 
had been indignantly received as a false rumor. 
Over the two bridges, from one of which all but the 
string-pieces had been removed, our troops were 



FREDERICKSBURG. 



65 



compelled to cross the canal, by the flank, in plain 
view of the enemy and within six or eight hundred 
yards of their works. A pretty beginning, this, for 
an assault by "a division or more " upon a position, 
strong in itself, heavily fortified, held by thirty 
thousand veteran soldiers ! Fortunately, a slight 
depression of the ground, part way between the 
canal and the hills, allowed French's shattered 
brigades an opportunity to re-form before their 
supreme effort. They waited only long enough to 
dress their ranks ; and then, rising over the last 
crest, made bravely for the sunken road and the 
stone wall. Every officer in his place and every 
man in the ranks knew that the task set for them 
was impossible ; but the word was ** Forward ! " and 
forward they went, though now, in addition to direct 
and enfilading fires from batteries which Long- 
street's chief of artillery had placed so that "he 
could rake the whole field as with a fine-tooth 
comb," burst upon the devoted ranks a storm of 
bullets from the Confederate infantry, drawn up 
under complete shelter in the sunken road and 
behind the stone wall. Down went our men by 
hundreds, yet they pressed bravely on until the 
foremost ranks came within half smooth-bore range 
of the stone wall. Flesh and blood could do no 
more; the deadly volleys from the well-covered 
marksmen bore the leading brigade, as if by sheer 
weight, down to the ground. In vain French's 



66 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

second and then his last brigade came up, leaving 
the plain strewn thickly with the dead and the 
dying in their advance. They could only fling 
themselves upon the ground with their comrades of 
the leading brigade, hold their riddled flags up 
into the enemy's fire, and wait for re-enforcements. 

Hancock has been ordered to follow French 
closely in three lines by brigade. Hardly is 
French clear of the town when Hancock is at his 
heels; hardly has French's rearmost brigade closed 
up on the first when Hancock's division mounts 
the little crest beyond the canal. First comes the 
brigade of Zook, as steadily as on parade in Camp 
California where old Sumner trained them to arms; 
close behind press Meagher's Irishmen, with sprigs 
of green in their caps, a loud cheer rising from their 
ranks as they dash into, the storm which bursts out 
afresh as Hancock, riding freely over the plain with 
his brilliant staff, throws his men forward against 
the stone wall. Behind march Caldwell's regiments, 
which, though last of all, are to lose most of all in 
the terrible half-hour to come. And now the First 
Division is all in view. Its foremost line has strug- 
gled up, over fences, over fallen comrades, against a 
steady sheet of flame from the stone wall now held 
by four solid ranks of riflemen, until it is but a lit- 
tle more than a pistol-shot away. The supporting 
brigades are fast closing up. Will they succeed ? 
Success, indeed, in any true sense, is impossible, for, 



FREIERICKSBURG. 67 

even should they mount the stone wall, now so 
near, bayonet its defenders and press up the slopes 
of Marye's Hill, what could become of them except 
to be surrounded and destroyed by the dense masses 
which lie in reserve beyond the crest ? But will 
they reach the stone wall ? For a moment it looks 
as though they would, so gallantly do they press 
forward, while generals and aids cheer them on. 
The last fence* is reached; in vain do Nugent and 
Kelly and scores of brave officers and men throw 
themselves upon it, seeking to tear up the posts or 
break the whole down by main force. Every minute 
a thousand bullets are hurled from the stone wall; 
every minute a hundred men go down. 

That fence marks the line of the Union advance 
on that glorious and terrible day. A few reaches of 
it were broken down, and through the gaps some 
brave soldiers struggled singly on and tried to make 
their way up to the stone wall, only to fall dead at 
half-pistol shot; but through the fence no company 
passed ; the faltering lines were swept backward by 
an irresistible weight of fire, and the men of Han- 
cock's division threw themselves on the ground or 
retreated to the nearest crest. Of the 5,006 who had 
gone into action that afternoon, 2,013 had fallen, of 
whom not less than 156 were commissioned officers. 
Among those who fell were men so brave that 

* " Each of these fences destroyed the unity of at least one 
brigade." — Hancock's Official Report. 



68 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

language fails rightly to tell their story, justly to 
sound their praises. In sixteen battalions which 
Hancock carried into fight, twenty-five officers had 
been killed or wounded while in command, regi- 
ments having seen their second, their third, and 
even in one case their fourth commander shot down. 
The regiment which at the close of the day had its 
fifth commander at its head was the Fifth New 
Hampshire, destined to lead the roll of all the 
infantry regiments of the Union armies, East or 
West, in the aggregate number of its " killed in 
action." Of the five officers of Hancock's personal 
staff present in the field, four had had horses shot 
under them; three had been wounded. 

It needs not here to describe the further actions 
of this memorable day; how Howard's division, 
which had held the rig'ht, advanced to the support 
of its hard-pressed comrades ; how the Ninth Corps 
fought gallantly on the left of the Second; how 
Butterfield brought up the Fifth Corps, and Hum- 
phreys hurled his division of nine months' troops 
against the stone wall, while sheets of flame swept 
his men away and he, the knight without reproach 
or fear, rode back last of all ; how Burnside from 
the other side of the river looked down on the use- 
less sacrifice of his troops which, even then, he failed 
to apprehend in its true proportions, and again and 
again declared that the crest must and should be 
carried ; how night fell at last over a field where 



FREDERICKSBURG. 



69 



more than eight thousand men had shed their blood 
in a vain and hopeless struggle; and the great 
battle of the right at Fredericksburg was over. 

The men of the Second Corps, especially of Han- 
cock's division, still held most of the ground they had 
gained in their advance and lay there, faces downward, 
awaiting the word of command. After dark they 
were withdrawn to the town, where two days passed, 
often under severe shelling from the heights, until 
Burnside could be persuaded to retire altogether 
from the enterprise upon which he had embarked 
with so inadequate a conception of its difficulties. 
The camps to which Hancock's division returned on 
the night of the 15th of December, after an absence 
of five days, were, alas! far too large for those who 
were left with the colors. Out of every group of 
five men, two had fallen in the desperate assault on 
Marye's Heights. There was room enough now, 
and to spare, in the little huts which the troops 
had constructed out of mud and logs, roofed in 
with "shelter tents." Here the command was des- 
tined to remain for four dreary months after the dis- 
astrous action which has been thus hurriedly and 
rudely described. From the hills around, the men 
of the First Division could survey the field on 
which two thousand of their comrades had fallen 
in that short winter afternoon, while, beyond, still 
frowned the Confederate batteries. The spectacle 
was not an inspiring one; nor had our troops at 



yo GENERAL HANCOCK. 

any time come near enough winning to make them 
wish to try the thing over again. The discipline of 
the army had in no degree been impaired by the 
hideous losses it had sustained ; but its confidence 
in Burnside had gone forever. The utter lack of 
anything like a definite plan of operations before 
the crossing of the nth ; the vacillation of the 12th ; 
the senseless orders for the attack on the 13th; the 
dispatches to Washington about ground gained and 
still held ; the weak bluster about a renewal of 
assault — all these things had combined to show the 
shrewd soldiers in the ranks that this was not the 
man who could lead them to victory. The general 
feeling was that a change must come ; and the dash 
and daring, the fine soldiership, the aggressive 
energy and soaring ambition of General Joseph 
Hooker, while in command of a division or a corps, 
had made it almost certain that the choice would 
fall upon him. Only the most thoughtful asked 
whether it could really be that so much of boastful 
self-assertion did not indicate a weakness of char- 
acter which, in the crisis of some severe and pro- 
tracted trial, might prove fatal. 

But Burnside, though professing his willingness 
to be relieved at any time, could not altogether give 
up the hope that some fortunate combination of cir- 
cumstances might yet redeem his reputation ; and 
during the later days of January, 1863, he actually 
undertook a movement round Lee's left flank, which. 



FREDERICKSBURG. 



71 



had it not been foiled at the outset, must have led 
to a battle near Chancellorsville. But it was des- 
tined that the command of the frank and kindly sol- 
dier was to close amid something very like general 
derision. As the center and left grand-divisions 
moved around behind the right, and took up the 
march for Banks' and United States fords, above 
Fredericksburg, a severe storm set in which soon 
converted fields and roads alike into one great bed 
of yellow Virginia mud. The infantry dragged 
themselves wearily along, pulling their legs out of 
the sticky clay with a great effort at every step, 
while at night the poor fellows slept on the flooded 
ground under an unceasing downpour, hungry be- 
cause the supply trains had not come up. The ar- 
tillery, the pontoons, and the ammunition wagons 
could hardly move at all. Only when half the 
horses of a battery were harnessed to a single gun, 
with large details of infantry to pull at the ropes, 
could any progress be made. At every stage cais- 
sons and even cannon were left behind; the road 
was strewn with dead mules and wrecked wagons. 
When at last the turning columns had been brought, 
in such a shape as might be, up to the fords, it was 
found that the pontoons could not possibly be got 
down to the river's edge, while it was equally evi- 
dent that, were the infantry forced across, it must 
be without artillery or reserve ammunition. Against 
such difficulties Burnside's last hope gave way; and. 



72 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



soon after the army had been withdrawn to its 
quarters, he relinquished the command to Hooker, 
who had long burned to try his hand at it. 

From the miseries and humiliation of the " mud 
campaign " Hancock's troops fortunately escaped, 
that division forming a part of the force which it 
had been intended to throw directly across the Rap- 
pahannock at Fredericksburg when the turning col- 
umns should have opened the way. So from their 
snug and comfortable huts Hancock's men looked 
cheerfully and philosophically out upon their fel- 
lows of the other C9rps as they went toiling up the 
roads to the fords, and as they came back, tired, be- 
draggled, hungry, and disgusted, after the lapse of 
three or four wretched days. In the interval be- 
tween Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, Han- 
cock's division lost, by the expiry of its term of 
enlistment (two years), the gallant Seventh New 
York ; but was re-enforced by two splendid Pennsyl- 
vania regiments with full ranks, the One Hundred 
and Fortieth and the One Hundred and Forty- 
eighth. Hancock also added three excellent offi- 
cers to his staff — Major G. W. Scott, Sixty-first New 
York; Captain H. H. Bingham, One Hundred and 
Fortieth Pennsylvania; Lieutenant William P. Wil- 
son, One Hundred and Forty-eighth Pennsylvania. 



CHAPTER V. 

CHANCELLORSVILLE. 

The accession of General Hooker to the com- 
mand communicated a glow of hope and confidence 
to the much-enduring soldiers of the Army of the 
Potomac. He had long been known as one of the 
most gallant, daring, and impetuous of division and 
corps commanders. Handsome and picturesque in 
the extreme, though with a fatally weak chin, his 
brilliant courage, his popular manners, and even the 
frankness of his self-assertion, had given him a large 
place in the soldiers' hearts. And certainly few 
commanders ever made a better use of an oppor- 
tunity offered to refresh and refit an army after a 
disastrous and disheartening defeat. Every branch 
of the service instantly felt the influence of the new 
chief's energy and enthusiasm. The artillery was 
thoroughly reorganized and brought to the highest 
state of efficiency. The cavalry arm received an 
impulse which never ceased to actuate it down to 
the close of the war. The staff fairly jumped to 
their work in every department. Burnside's favor- 
ite " Grand Division " organization was broken up. 



74 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



as clumsy and ineffective; and the infantry of the 
several corps was thoroughly overhauled in matters 
of equipment and discipline. Before the end of 
April Hooker was in command of a splendid army, 
comprising one hundred and twenty thousand men 
of all arms — veteran, well-appointed^ brave, and be- 
lieving thoroughly in their leader. 

Hooker's plan of operations was clear, definite, 
sagacious. He purposed sending Meade, with his 
own corps, the Fifth, and with Howard's Eleventh 
and Slocum's Twelfth Corps, on a wide turning 
movement, to cross the Rappahannock at Kelly's 
ford, above the mouth of the Rapidan ; then, bend- 
ing southward, to cross the latter river at Germanna 
and Ely's fords; thence to move down along the 
bank of the Rappahannock, uncovering the fords 
below. At the United States ford was to be 
Couch's Second Corps, lacking Gibbon's division 
which was to remain at Falmouth. Couch was to 
cross the river and join Meade at Chancellorsville. 
This re-enforcement would give Meade nearly as 
many men as Lee had in his entire army, Long- 
street's corps being in the West. Meanwhile Sedg- 
wick, with his own corps, the Si.xth, Reynolds's First 
and Sickles's Third Corps and Gibbon's division of 
the Second, was to make demonstrations at and be- 
low Fredericksburg, to induce the belief that Hook- 
er's real object was to be found in that direction. 
As soon as Hooker should in person relieve Meade 



CHANCELLORSVILLE. 



75 



in the command at Chancellorsville, it would then 
be for him to decide whether he would call up Sedg- 
wick's force in whole or in part, or would use that 
column to cross the Rappahannock below and move 
into Lee's rear. Only one thing more requires to be 
said in such a hasty sketch as this. The splendid 
cavalry of the Army of the Potomac was to be sent 
on a great raid against Lee's communications, to 
threaten Richmond, intercept the Confederate sup- 
plies and re-enforcements, and prevent Lee from re- 
treating in case of disaster. Perhaps it would have 
been better had Hooker kept the cavalry by him, to 
cover the movements of his own army and to help 
him win the victory of which he was, as the event 
proved, too well assured. 

Everything at first went prosperously. Meade 
accomplished his turning movement promptly. Set- 
ting out on the 27th of April, he was joined at 
Chancellorsville, on the afternoon of the 30th, by 
Couch's two divisions. Here Hooker, too, arrived, 
full of confidence, and that evening issued a boastful 
general order declaring that " the enemy must either 
ingloriously fly or come out from behind his defenses 
and give us battle on our own ground, where certain 
destruction awaits him." On the left, down the river, 
things had gone equally well. Sedgwick, on the 
29th, crossed the Rappahannock with two divisions 
below Fredericksburg, causing Lee to believe that 
here was the real point of attack. As the success of 



76 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the turning movement was now complete. Sickles's 
corps was called up to Chancellorsville. Thus far 
Hooker's operations had been well conceived and 
promptly and energetically executed. But the morn- 
ing of the ist of May witnessed the beginnings of 
the collapse, of which, indeed, the delays of the 
previous afternoon had given some intimation to 
the leading officers at Chancellorsville. Instead of 
moving straight on down the river, against whatever 
opposition, until he uncovered Banks's ford — which 
alone would have greatly shortened the route by 
which the corps below could communicate with him, 
or re-enforce him at need upon ground much better 
suited for the development of his army — precious 
hours were thrown away, while yet the order to 
march was not given. At last Slocum was sent down 
the plank road with the Twelfth Corps ; Sykes's di- 
vision of the Fifth, followed by Hancock's division, 
took the Fredericksburg pike ; while Humphreys 
moved on the river road. Everything betokened 
hot work. But scarcely had Sykes and Slocum 
encountered the enemy, about two miles out, when 
the fatal order came to retire to Chancellorsville. 
That order had been issued against the earnest re- 
monstrances of General Gouverneur K.Warren, chief 
topographical officer on Hooker's staff ; and it was 
received by the several corps commanders concerned 
— Meade, Couch, and Slocum — with mingled amaze- 
ment and indignation. So completely did the great 



CHANCELLORSVILLE. 



77 



movement all at once collapse, so ignobly was the 
splendid promise of three days broken ! The turn- 
ing column, which had started out, with high hopes 
elate and in expectation of a decisive battle, sud- 
denly found itself on the defensive, and was set to 
work digging intrenchments around Chancellorsville. 
Painful and odious as the order was, it had to 
be obeyed. Hancock, who had been behind Sykes, 
formed line of battle to cover that officer's with- 
drawal. Couch, ever at the front when any part of 
his command was likely to be engaged, was with 
Hancock's division in person. Although the enemy, 
detecting the movement, at once assumed the ag- 
gressive, yet so prompt was Hancock's action and 
so gallant the bearing of his troops that it was not 
until he was near the Chancellorsville clearing that 
the Confederates were able to interfere seriously 
with him. Here he was beset by forces which had 
followed up Slocum's shorter line of retreat on the 
plank road, and had thus been brought upon his 
right flank. For a few minutes affairs were critical ; 
but the steadiness of the skirmish line, the energetic 
action of the supporting regiments, and the hand- 
some assistance rendered by Sykes's regulars, won 
the time necessary to bring the division into its 
assigned place in Hooker's new defensive line. Here 
the troops passed the night, disturbed somewhat by 
a severe shelling from the enemy's batteries, now 
established on the high ground which, by the in- 



78 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

sane order to retreat, had been surrendered to them. 
Various explanations have been given of Hook- 
er's actions on the afternoon of the ist of May. 
The writer has always believed that they were due 
partly to lack of that firm moral stamina which is 
so often found to accompany a spirit of arrogance 
and boastfulness, but chiefly to a nervous collapse 
occasioned by the excitement and fatigue of the 
four preceding days. Drunkenness, once alleged, 
certainly was not any part of the cause. 

The morning of the 2d of May found General 
Hooker's army in the position he had chosen, and 
with which he still declared himself entirely satisfied. 
In an order, dated 4.20 p. m. of the ist, he had said : 
" The Major-General commanding trusts that a 
suspension in the attack to-day will embolden 
the enemy to attack him." In little more than 
twenty-four hours he was to learn what embold- 
ening Lee and Jackson to attack him might imply. 
Sickles's corps was now all up ; Howard's was on 
the extreme right at Dowdall's Tavern; Hancock's 
division and the Fifth Corps formed the left, stretch- 
ing across the Fredericksburg pike and the river 
roads; the Third and Twelfth held the center. In 
this attitude, behind breastworks, the army waited 
and wondered. By noon it was forty-eight hours 
since the turning column reached Chancellorsville; 
yet here the Fifth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Corps 
still were, though re-enforced by their comrades 



CHANCELLORSVILLE. 



79 



of the Second and Third, the whole advantage of 
surprise thrown away, the enemy given every op- 
portunity either to strengthen their own positions 
or to seek some weak spot in the Union Hne on 
which to dehver an attack. This last was what Lee 
and Jackson were actually preparing ; for, while our 
troops continued to wait and wonder, Lee's chief 
lieutenant had, since early morning, been on the 
march with a powerful column of twenty-six thou- 
sand men, to reach, by a long detour, a position 
opposite Hooker's right, where he might deliver an 
unexpected and crushing blow. In order to occupy 
Hooker's attention, the Confederate skirmishers, 
strongly supported, were pushed forward against 
our left, making the liveliest demonstrations. The 
heaviest firing was on the front of Hancock, along 
the Fredericksburg pike, his skirmishers being as- 
sailed with great spirit. Probably at this hour no 
serious purpose of an attack from that side was 
entertained ; but, whether to make the demonstra- 
tion so vigorous as to draw Hooker's attention 
entirely off from what might be going on in How- 
ard's quarter, or to push Hancock's line back 
nearer to the Chancellor House, with a view to 
taking the utmost advantage of the coming crash 
at Dowdall's Tavern, the enemy certainly made 
most unusual efforts. Yet all the while Hancock's 
intrenched skirmish line, under the command of 
Colonel Miles, remained as steady as a rock. 



8o GENERAL HANCOCK. 

But while the skirmishing was exceptionally se- 
vere, the troops never for a moment imagined that 
this was a battle. They knew too well the signs 
and portents of those great encounters in which 
men fall by thousands, and hostile divisions grind 
against each other like mighty ships in collision. 
That something was going to happen before night 
everybody felt, but when or how it would come few 
conjectured. And, yet, had headquarters been as 
vigilant and attentive as such great interests de- 
manded, there were indications enough of Jackson's 
daring flank march. Hooker was, however, fully 
possessed by the idea that Lee was going to run 
away — actually was running away — and at one time 
Sickles's corps was pushed out from the Union cen- 
ter as if m pursuit. Unfortunately, Jackson's rear 
had just passed, and his movement thus escaped the 
disclosure which a collision at that point would have 
occasioned. Indeed, Sickles's reports only confirmed 
Hooker in his notion that the Confederates were re- 
treating on Gordonsville, ingloriously flying, as he 
had prophesied in his general order. 

But Hooker's illusions were terribly dispelled 
when, between five and six o'clock, Jackson, having 
completely flanked our army, broke out from the 
cover of the forest upon the small corps of Howard, 
which was swung out "in air" upon the Union right, 
badly posted, with an utterly inadequate force of 
skirmishers advanced, and without so much as a 



CHANCELLORSVILLE. gl 

company of cavalry to give warning of a hostile 
approach. No body of troops in such a position 
could have resisted such an assault, led by Stone- 
wall Jackson. In spite of the utmost resistance 
which the braver part of Howard's men could offer, 
the Eleventh Corps was routed and driven back 
upon the rest of the army, with the Confederates 
in fierce pursuit. After all the mutterings of the 
day, the blow came at last as unexpectedly as a bolt 
launched from a cloudless sky. In an instant all 
was excitement, and dire was the confusion on the 
great plain by the Chancellor House. Down the 
road from Dowdall's Tavern came the wreck of 
Howard's battle — camp followers, baggage wagons, 
ambulances and caissons, and fugitives from the 
ranks — all rushing back pellmell to get as far as 
possible away from Jackson. But even here they 
found no peace, for, the moment the sounds of con- 
flict told that the turning column was getting in its 
work, the divisions of Anderson and McLaws, which 
General Lee had kept with himself, redoubled their 
attacks with both artillery and infantry, trusting, in 
the surprise and alarm, to break through our lines 
on the left ; or, if they could not do that, to prevent 
any force being dispatched to withstand Jackson. 

The brunt of the new assault fell upon Han- 
cock's division by reason of its being directly across 
the Fredericksburg pike ; but the intrenched line 
under Miles, which had been strongly re-enforced 



82 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

during the night and which was fed by Hancock 
with fresh troops just as fast as needed, held its 
ground and kept the enemy at bay. Again and 
again the Confederates brought lines of battle down 
into the slashing, and again and again they had to 
go back. Rarely in the history of war has anything 
finer been seen. Rightly does Mr. Swinton say : 
"Amid much that is dastardly at Chancellorsville, 
the conduct of this young but gallant and skillful 
officer shines forth with a brilliant luster." So de- 
lighted was Hancock at the splendid behavior of his 
skirmish line that, after one repulse of the enemy, 
he exclaimed : " Captain Parker, ride down and tell 
Colonel Miles he is worth his weight in gold "; while 
Couch, turning to the major generals who command- 
ed his two divisions, said, in his quiet, emphatic 
way : " I tell you what, gentlemen, I shall not be 
greatly surprised to find myself some day serving 
under that young man." Thirty-one years later 
(1894), "that young man," a volunteer of the great 
war, is now within three years of commanding the 
armies of the United States. 

While Hancock was thus holding the enemy off 
from the Chancellor plain, where even a momentary 
collapse of our line would have been disastrous. 
Sickles and Pleasonton were straining every nerve 
to bring Jackson to a stand in his terrific movement 
down the road from Dowdall's Tavern. Batteries 
from the reserve galloped into position ; troops from 



CHANCELLORSVILLE. 83 

the Third and other corps hurried to the threatened 
point, and formed line with an alacrity and con- 
fidence not a whit diminished by the mass of fu- 
gitives who still continued to pour along the road, 
calling out for " the pontoons," or fairly howling 
with fright.* All observers of that field on that 
disastrous afternoon agree that the stampede did 
not in the slightest degree affect the self-possession 
and discipline of the troops on the Chancellor plain, 
who, indeed, were rather disposed to chaff their un- 
fortunate brethren from Dowdall's Tavern, and, for 
themselves, showed no sign of alarm as Jackson's 
victorious divisions closed in from the west. 

But, much to the surprise of all, the worst proved 
to be over. Jackson's men had become disordered 
by the very greatness of their success and by their 
rapid movements ; they had suffered not a little 
from the stand made by some of the Eleventh Corps 
brigades ; night was coming on to embarrass their 
further advance ; at any moment they might, so far 
as they knew, receive a blow on their left flank ; 
while in front of them a grim line of batteries, sup- 
ported by infantry and cavalry, barred the way to 

* Some of the fugitives were so completely beside themselves 
with fear that they ran past the Chancellor House, dovj^n the Fred- 
ericksburg pike, through Hancock's line, and into the hands of 
the Confederates, without being stopped. One ingenuous German 
approached Hancock and begged to be directed to the pontoons. 
The answer he received has been handed down by tradition ; but 
it is best not to put it into cold and unsympathetic type. 



84 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

Hooker's headquarters. After their first onset had 
been repelled by canister from a score of guns, 
they contented themselves with feeling our line here 
and there in the growing darkness, and at last came 
to a complete halt. An hour later the adventurous 
and daring captain who had organized this great 
stroke fell mortally wounded by the fire of his own 
men while riding back from a reconnoissance of 
Hooker's position. This great disaster would alone 
have put a stop to any attempt on the part of the Con- 
federates to push further their advantage that night. 
The morning of the 3d of May (Sunday) found 
the Union forces at Chancellorsville in no degree 
discouraged, except for the strange, uncanny feeling 
which the conduct of general headquarters had cre- 
ated. The rout of the Eleventh Corps, which to the 
Confederates had seemed a great victory, had, in 
fact, affected the real Army of the Potomac scarcely 
at all. Indeed, after the first shock there was more 
of a disposition to make a jest of it than to treat it 
as an important matter. The Eleventh Corps had 
never been regarded as belonging to the Army of 
the Potomac. It had come up only after the battle 
of Fredericksburg, and had then encamped far in 
the rear of the army, so that almost no intercourse 
had taken place between these troops and the older 
divisions. The venerable joke about "fighting mit 
Sigel " had gone the rounds so many times that it 
was difficult to take Sitrel's men verv seriouslv when 



CHANCELLORSVILLE 

May 3^, 1863 

Mornint 



urgiON WORKS 
V/ ^» CORPS 




>^' Hazel 
*\Grove 



CHANCELLORSVILLE. 85 

they appeared. All this was doubtless unjust. The 
Eleventh Corps, as its subsequent history proved, 
contained regiments and brigades which for gal- 
lantry, discipline, and endurance could not be ex- 
celled. But soldiers are creatures of camp rumors 
and camp-fire stories. Of the remaining troops, of 
the Second, Third, Fifth, and Twelfth Corps, then at 
Chancellorsville, not a single brigade had up to this 
time had more than fighting enough to bring it to 
Its " second wind." Moreover, the First Corps, un- 
der Reynolds, was now up and ready to join in the 
sport, having left Sedgwick, with the Sixth Corps 
and Gibbon's division, below. Here, then, were, at 
the lowest count, seventy thousand men, not includ- 
ing Howard's corps, all veteran troops, ready and 
even eager for the fray. Lee had, first and last, 
both of those confronting Sedgwick and of those 
under his own eye at Chancellorsville, barely fifty- 
five thousand. Small wonder that the Army of the 
Potomac was confident on the 3d of May ! 

But the army was to have that day a far, far hard- 
er trial than it dreamed of. The position at the Chan- 
cellor House was a thoroughly bad one. The high 
ground which Hooker had surrendered to the enemy, 
of his own fatal motion, or of which he had allowed 
himself to be dispossessed, completely commanded 
the plain on which his troops were drawn up. Over 
that plain shells from a hundred and eighty degrees 
of the circle were to fly screaming and exploding 



86 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

through every moment of the coming fight. There 
was no considerable portion of the Union breast- 
works which was not to be enfiladed or taken in re- 
verse by the enemy's artillery. But the unfortunate 
position to which the army was condemned was the 
lightest of the disadvantages under which it was to 
suffer. That army had, in truth, no longer a head. 
Hooker had succumbed to the strange lethargy 
which had afflicted him ever since the morning of 
the ist of May. The rout of Howard's corps had 
finished him. He had caused to be constructed a 
new line of works at the Bullock Clearing in rear ; 
and his principal thought seemed to be to retire to 
this, while yet he would neither give the order to 
retreat nor make the necessary preparations for 
fighting upon the Chancellorsville plateau. The 
morning was to see troops desperately engaged for 
hours against superior numbers, without an effort to 
re-enforce them or even to supply their exhausted 
cartridge boxes. It was to see a gallant and vet- 
eran army defeated in a false position, while yet two 
fifths of its numbers had not fired a shot. 

The battle of Sunday morning was divided into 
two separate actions. Even the enemy were not 
united, the force under Lee being still separated 
from that which Jackson had led out for his great 
flank march. The smaller of the two actions was 
that in which Hancock's division and troops from 
the Twelfth Corps held the intrenchments on the 



CHANCELLORSVILLE. 8/ 

left against the divisions of McLaws and Anderson. 
The larger and more desperate action was that in 
which the Third Corps and portions of the Twelfth, 
re-enforced later by French's division of the Second, 
held the center and right against the column com- 
manded by General J. E. B. Stuart, who had suc- 
ceeded to Jackson's command. All through the 
long morning the First and Fifth Corps, under Rey- 
nolds and Meade, thirty thousand strong, lay on 
their arms within striking distance of the Confed- 
erate left flank without an order to fall on. 

The conduct of affairs upon the left was fortu- 
nate. The troops there engaged on the Union side 
were enough to hold back McLaws and Anderson, 
and they did it. Again Miles played the brilliant 
role that had been assigned to him the day before ; 
and, with his skirmish line re-enforced so that it 
comprised nearly half the division, beat back every 
attempt of the enemy until, at last, this heroic young 
officer, after performing prodigies of valor and es- 
caping a thousand deaths, fell severely wounded, 
and was carried to the rear, as it was believed, to 
die. But still the skirmish line, under the personal 
direction of Couch and Hancock, held its ground ; 
and, though a triple line of battle more than once 
descended into the slashing to force it back, main- 
tained itself unbroken. Upon Sickles's corps, how- 
ever, and a division of the Twelfth, the whole fury 
of Stuart's assault was allowed to fall without sup- 
7 



88 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

port or relief, except for the dispatch of French's 
division previously mentioned. The attack and the 
defense were alike of the most desperate resolution. 
The long Confederate lines were whipped into foam 
as they dashed against the Third Corps breastworks; 
their reserves were brought up in vain ; and when, 
at last, Carroll's brigade of three small regiments 
from the Second Corps was brought over and thrown 
upon Stuart's flank it was hardly possible for the 
enemy to scrape together troops enough to bring 
this intrepid officer to a stand. Yet all the while 
the First and Fifth Corps lay less than a mile away. 
Entreaties met no reply, or else a surly rebuff. At 
last a fresh assault found an undefended point in the 
weakened Union lines, a brigade or two gave way 
and the Confederates poured in and were masters of 
the position. Even so, there was no rout or panic 
on the part of our forces ; the enemy, dazed by their 
own success after such tremendous efforts, worn and 
torn by the savage fighting of the morning, made 
almost no captures, whether of men or of guns, and 
were cautious about advancing over the Chancel- 
lorsvilie plateau, perhaps suspecting a trap. Slowly 
the several Union corps fell out of their positions 
and took up their retreat to the Bullock Clearing, 
scarcely molested. By half-past nine o'clock the 
Confederate commanders were occupying the Union 
breastworks and were crowding the edges of the 
plain with their artillery. 



CHANCELLORSVILLE. 



89 



Two divisions alone remain. These are the 
divisions of Hancock and Geary. The former 
division is no longer intact, General Caldwell hav- 
ing at a sudden call marched with three regiments to 
the United States ford road ; General Meagher, 
with the Irish brigade, having been detached ever 
since the crossing of the river. The troops with 
Hancock, comprising eleven regiments, are now 
formed in two lines of battle, back to back, one 
fronting west toward Gordonsville, to protect 
Geary's right; the other, only a few hundred yards 
away, fronting east toward Fredericksburg, still in 
the position so long occupied and so gallantly de- 
fended. Geary's line faces southward, crossing the 
plank road. Couch and Hancock have but four- 
teen guns at command, of which only nine are in 
condition to be very effective. These are directed 
to fire up the turnpike; the remaining five — of Le- 
pine's Fifth Maine Battery — are placed in the peach 
orchard behind the Chancellor House, 

The gallant bearing of these troops for the mo- 
ment checks the progress of the enemy's infantry, 
who, fearfully punished in the great action of the 
morning, believe that they have a new battle to 
fight ; but the fire of the Confederate artillery now 
becomes infernal. Lieutenant Donohue, in com- 
mand of Thomas's battery, is mortally wounded. 
Lepine's battery in the peach orchard is almost 
instantly cut in pieces; every officer is either killed 



90 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



or wounded, whereupon Couch requests Lieutenant 
Kirby, of the First United States Artillery, to take 
command. Hardly has Kirby reached his new post 
when his horse is killed, and a few minutes later this 
most heroic and promising young officer falls mor- 
tally wounded.* And now a heavy infantry column 
falls upon the front which Geary has maintained 
with so much spirit across the plank road. Stub- 
bornly the men of the Twelfth Corps resist ; but at 
last this part of the line, too, falls out, and Geary's 
command passes, in no disorderly column, down the 
road to the Bullock Clearing, where the new posi- 
tion is being taken up. It is still of importance to 
gain time ; to hold the enemy at bay as long as 
possible, that the roads leading to the rear may be 
cleared of troops and the broken brigades may be 
re-formed. This necessity presses strongly upon 
General Couch, and nobly does he set himself to 
discharge the duty. His example is superb. His 
horse is killed, he is himself twice hit. Nobly is he 
seconded by the chief of his First Division, Han- 
cock, whose horse is killed and who is only able to 
secure a remount on an animal hardly large enough 
to allow the general's feet to clear the ground. 

The Chancellor plain has become a very hell ; shot 
scream over it from every direction but the north and 

* Kirby died on the 28th of May. On the 23d President Lin- 
coln sent him a general's commission in recognition of his bril- 
liant abilities, undaunted courage, and faithful service. 



CHANCELLORSVILLE. 



91 



the northeast ; the house itself is in flames, and the 
wounded are removed from it under a torrent of 
bursting shells; yet Hancock's division, alone where 
seven divisions had been, still stands in two lines 
of battle, back to back, facing east and facing west, 
while the artillery, itself torn almost to pieces, holds 
the enemy at bay toward the south. At last the 
word comes that the First Division may retire. The 
long skirmish line quickly withdraws, although, by 
the blunder of a staff officer, eight companies file 
out of their trenches in the wrong direction and fall 
into the enemy's hands ; the guns of Lepine's bat- 
tery, which has lost all its officers, all its cannoneers, 
and all its horses, are drawn off by hand ; and the 
heroic rear guard falls slowly back to the new 
line at the Bullock clearing. 

The course of our narrative does not require us 
to deal at length with the further operations and 
incidents of the Chancellorsville campaign. During 
the remainder of the 3d of May and throughout 
the 4th Hooker kept his army inactive in their in- 
trenchments, although urged to resume the offensive 
with the fresh corps of Meade and Reynolds and 
the soundest divisions remaining in the other corps, 
and contented himself with strengthening his new 
position. Thus Lee was enabled to withdraw from 
his front a sufficient number of troops to bring 
to a stand the gallant corps of Sedgwick, which 
had captured Fredericksburg and had moved as 



Q2 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

far as Salem Church into Lee's rear; and then, 
Hooker still remaining inactive, to detach other 
brigades to drive Sedgwick across the river at 
Banks's ford. On the night of the 5th of May 
Hooker withdrew his baffled army across the Rap- 
pahannock, and the troops returned to their former 
camps after the loss of seventeen thousand men. 

One of the results of the Chancellorsville campaign 
was a change in the command of the Second Corps. 
General Couch had felt outraged in every nerve 
and fiber of his being by the conduct of General 
Hooker from the ist to the 5th of May: the retreat 
from the admirable offensive position reached by 
Sykes and Slocum on the ist ; the inaction of the 
2d, giving opportunity for the overthrow and rout 
of Howard's corps; the defective dispositions of 
Sunday morning; the refusal to support the hard- 
pressed divisions at the front; the failure to throw 
Meade and Reynolds upon the Confederate left ; 
the defensive attitude of the 4th, which allowed the 
isolated corps of Sedgwick to be overwhelmed 
without support or relief. It is a matter of regret 
that General Couch did not for a little while longer 
possess his soul in patience. A few weeks more 
would have seen the army commanded by an officer 
in whom he had the utmost confidence, and under 
whom, though his junior,* he would have delighted 

* To President Lincoln's sujjgestion that he should succeed 
Hooker in the command. Couch returned a sincere and decided 



CHANCELLOKSVILLE. 93 

to march at the head of his own gallant corps. One 
can not help thinking that Gettysburg would have 
been a greater victory had Couch there led the 
Second Corps, as at Fredericksburg and at Chancel- 
lorsville, while Hancock, as in that event he would 
have done, commanded the Fifth Corps. The great 
lack of the Union army at Gettysburg was to be that 
of capable corps commanders* — a lack most pain- 
fully felt after the fall of Reynolds on the first day. 
Sedgwick, Slocum, and Hancock were easily of the 
first rank; but some of the others, though all ex- 
cellent division commanders, left much to be de- 
sired. In such a situation the addition of one more 
first-class corps commander would have been a 
source of great strength. But this was not to be. 
General Couch had wrought himself into an almost 
morbid feeling that he could never again lead his 
troops under Hooker, to what he regarded as pur- 
poseless slaughter. In this spirit, with pain inex- 
pressible, he asked to be relieved from further serv- 
ice with the Army of the Potomac, and on the loth 
of June left the Second Corps forever. A few days 
later, in recognition of his distinguished services, he 
was assigned to the new Department of the Susque- 

negative. Neither his health, always delicate, nor his retiring 
disposition qualified him for such a post of responsibility. 

* It is only in studying the operations of the Army of the 
Potomac after Gettysburg, from Falling Waters to Mine Run, 
that one comes fully to appreciate the poverty of the Army of the 
Potomac in this respect at this time. 



94 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



hanna, formed to resist the threatening invasion of 
Pennsylvania. 

By the retirement of General Couch the com- 
mand of the corps devolved without question upon 
Hancock. It was with a stern joy at the fulfilment 
of his righteous ambition, with a glad confidence in 
his own powers, yet not the less with an earnest 
sense of the responsibility thus devolved upon him, 
that Hancock first drew his sword at the head of 
that body of troops which, in losing fifteen thou- 
sand men in battle, had never lost a color or a gun; 
whose fair fame, he was well resolved, should never 
suffer wrong at his hands. As when, at Antietam, 
he was promoted to the charge of a division, he was 
instantly recognized as one of the most distin- 
guished officers of that grade, so upon his accession 
to the Second Corps the whole army instantly recog- 
nized his full and absolute competency for the posi- 
tion. We shall see in how few days thereafter he 
was to be called upon to exercise a much larger au- 
thority in one of the greatest crises of the war. 



CHAPTER VI. 

GETTYSBURG. THE FIRST DAY. 

Hancock's appointment to the command of the 
Second Corps came on the eve of great events. 
Although Hooker, with marvelous optimism, per- 
sisted in regarding Chancellorsville as virtually a 
victory for the Union arms, he was aware that the 
army, the Administration, and the country at large 
held a widely different opinion, and that something 
must be done, and done at once, if he were to re- 
habilitate himself in public confidence. But while 
he was searching the positions above and below 
Fredericksburg to find some opening, Lee deter- 
mined to take an initiative which should cause the 
Union forces to loose their hold upon the Rappa- 
hannock, and should for a time transfer the contest 
to Northern soil. Many considerations urged him to 
this policy, the same which he had adopted after foil- 
ing McClellan's advance upon Richmond. Among 
these were the relief to be afforded to his own peo- 
ple from the terrible strain of a Union army con- 
stantly menacing Richmond ; the discouragement 
which would be produced throughout the North by 



96 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



repeating the invasion of 1862; the prestige to be 
given the Confederate arms abroad ; the supposed 
demoralization of the Potomac army by the defeats 
at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville ; the further 
depletion of that army by the approaching expiry of 
the nine months' and the two years' (New York) en- 
listments; the opportunity of feeding his men for 
a while from the fertile fields of Maryland and 
Pennsylvania, together with some fair chances of 
at least considerable initial success, to be effected 
by his fast-marching, indefatigable infantry. 

It does not fall within the scope of this narrative 
to describe the manoeuvres by which the Confederate 
chieftain, between the 3d and the 15th of June, con- 
trived so to place his army that Hooker was com- 
pelled to abandon the line of the Rappahannock 
and fall back to cover Washington. It was on the 
15th that the Second Corps, under its new com- 
mander, left the camps near Falmouth which it had 
occupied with one brief intermission since the No- 
vember preceding, and took the route for Acquia 
Creek, covering the rear of the army. On this and 
on the succeeding day the intense heat and the thick 
dust made the march most oppressive and exhausting 
to troops so long in camp. It was under such con- 
ditions that Hancock's remarkable power of holding 
his men together told to the greatest effect. With 
our Northern soldiers nothing was of more impor- 
tance to their efficiency than steadiness upon the 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. 97 

road. The Confederates, indeed, seemed to com- 
bine the instincts which made great freedom on the 
march, even to the point of wholesale straggling, 
compatible with tenacity in fight ; but of the Union 
army it may truly be said that troops which were 
allowed to dawdle and dribble on the road were 
preparing themselves to be beaten in fight. The 
movement that had been entered upon was to prove 
at times one of severe trial, often to the limit of 
human endurance ; but all that could be done by 
good judgment, firm temper, and a staff always out 
on the road, was done to spare the troops as much 
as possible, while bringing them into camp in good 
order at night. On the 21st the corps moved to 
Thoroughfare Gap, passing directly over the great 
historical battlefield of Bull Run. On the 25th the 
corps moved from Thoroughfare Gap to the Potomac, 
re-enforced by a body of troops which was destined 
to take a conspicuous part in all the future labors 
and dangers of the Second Corps, from the approach- 
ing struggle on the slopes of Gettysburg to the final 
triumph of Appomattox. This was the brigade com- 
manded by Hancock's classmate, General Alexander 
Hays, consisting of the Thirty-ninth, One Hundred 
and Eleventh, One Hundred and Twenty-fifth, and 
One Hundred and Twenty-sixth New York.* 

* The corps had, during the month then passing, been reduced 
by the expiry of the term of enlistment of a two years' regiment, 
the Thirty-fourth, from the same State. 



98 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



Just as our troops were leaving Thoroughfare 
Gap an incident occurred which was importantly 
to affect the personnel of the corps. General 
Joshua T. Owen having been placed in arrest by 
General Gibbon, Brigadier-General Alexander S. 
Webb, who had just received his volunteer appoint- 
ment, after long and honorable artillery and staff 
service, reached the headquarters, seeking an assign- 
ment to duty at the front, and Hancock, knowing 
the man, seized the opportunity to place him at the 
head of the " Philadelphia Brigade," thus left with- 
out a commander. On the 26th the corps crossed 
Edwards' Ferry, near the scene of the unhappy bat- 
tle of Ball's Bluff, in which several regiments of the 
Second Division had participated in October of 
1861. On the 28th the corps reached Monocacy 
Junction, near Frederick City. Here the Army of 
the Potomac received the important intelligence 
that General Hooker had been relieved in the com- 
mand by General George G. Meade, then at the 
head of the Fifth Corps. General Hooker, after 
protesting against the fatuous occupation of Harper's 
Ferry by a large force under French, in pursuance of 
the policy which had brought such disaster in Septem- 
ber, 1862, had tendered his resignation. In justice 
it should be said, not only that Hooker was right 
in demanding the evacuation of Harper's Ferry, but 
that, from the moment Lee's invasion of Maryland 
was known, he had displayed at all points the 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. 



99 



qualities of a first-rate commander. Whether he 
would again have broken down under the strain 
of an impending battle, as he had so mysterious- 
ly done at Chancellorsville after a brilliant initia- 
tive, can only be conjectured. 

It is a critical thing to change the commander of 
an army in the presence of a powerful and aggres- 
sive enemy ; but in this instance the responsibility 
had fallen on one at whose hands the Army of the 
Potomac was to suffer no loss of honor. Without 
pausing a single day. General Meade put his troops 
in motion northward, on the 29th, to find the enemy. 
Amid the fiery cloud of Southern raiders where was 
the nucleus of that high-daring, much-enduring 
army ? The Second Corps was to proceed by a 
forced march through Uniontown to a point two 
miles out on the Westminster road. Much pre- 
cious time had been lost by the stupidity of the 
messenger who brought the order from headquar- 
ters; but to the accomplishment of its cruel task, 
thirty-two miles with artillery and trains on a single 
road, the veteran corps bent itself with unfaltering 
spirit. By ten o'clock that night the march had 
been made, and the wearied men sank to rest where 
they had halted. At Uniontown the reception of our 
troops by the patriotic inhabitants had been most 
friendly and inspiriting. Refreshment was freely 
offered along the road at gates and porches, and 
kind words and good cheer lifted the hearts of the 



lOO GENERAL HANCOCK. 

tired soldiers crowding forward to take their part in 
the greatest battle of the war. 

There is some poetry but also much truth in the 
popular tradition regarding the spirit of the Army 
of the Potomac on the route to Gettysburg. Once 
more in "God's country," as the soldiers termed it; 
the bloody slopes of Marye's hill, the dismal woods 
of Chancellorsville far away in the rear; moving 
on good Northern roads, instead of wading ankle- 
deep in the yellow Virginia mud, or thumping over 
corduroy; surveying a landscape which to most of 
them was like that of home, or in the enthusiasm 
of the moment looked so; going up to battle amid 
the acclaim of loyal citizens ; marching between 
vineclad cottages which did not seem to belong to 
the same world as the mud-plastered log huts they 
had left behind — the good troops who marched from 
Frederick to Gettysburg, gallantly as they had borne 
themselves in disaster, were yet wonderfully heart- 
ened by scene and circumstance, by friendly greet- 
ing and the look of home. Earnestly did they talk 
together by the way until the fire burned and the 
strong resolve formed itself throughout the ranks to 
do or die for their country and its laws. 

The following was the constitution, by divisions 
and brigades, of the Second Army Corps on the 
30th of June, 1863 : 

First Division. — Brigadier-General John C. Cald- 
well. First Brigade : Colonel Edward E. Cross. 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. loi 

Second Brigade: Colonel Patrick Kelly. Third 
Brigade : Brigadier-General Samuel K. Zook. Fourth 
Brigade : Colonel John R. Brooke. 

Second Division. — Brigadier-General John Gib- 
bon. First Brigade: Brigadier-General William 
Harrow. Second Brigade : Brigadier-General Alex- 
ander S. Webb. Third Brigade: Colonel Norman J. 
Hall. 

Third Division. — Brigadier-General Alexander 
Hays. First Brigade : Colonel S. Sprigg Carroll. 
Second Brigade : Colonel Thomas A. Smyth. Third 
Brigade: Colonel George L. Willard. 

Artillery Brigade. — Five batteries. Captain John 
G. Hazard. 

The Corps Staff included Morgan, Inspector 
General and Chief of Staff; Walker, Assistant Ad- 
jutant General (absent, wounded) ; Batchelder, Chief 
Quartermaster; Smith, Chief Commissary; Dough- 
erty, Medical Director; Bull, Provost Marshal; 
Mitchell, Miller, and Parker, aids; Bingham, Judge 
Advocate; Brownson, Commissary of Musters; 
Livermore, Chief of Ambulances. 

The day which followed the long march to and 
beyond Uniontown was passed by the troops of the 
Second Corps in a welcome quiet, no orders to 
march disturbing their peaceful rest, no booming of 
distant cannon presaging the fierce encounter soon 
to take place. The morning of Wednesday, July 
ist, found the corps still in camp; and Hancock 



102 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

sat down to address a general order to his troops 
urging them by all considerations of honor and 
patriotism to do their utmost in the impending 
struggle. The rough draft of this order lies before 
me as I write. I quote the concluding sentence : 

" To the patriotic and brave I have said enough. 
Upon those who desert their posts in the hour of 
trial let instant death be inflicted by their comrades. 
" WiNFiELD S. Hancock, Covimanding." 

It was not usual for Hancock to address his 
troops or to appeal to them in general orders. On 
this occasion perhaps some little excitement pro- 
ceeding from the newness of his command, his in- 
tense feeling as a Pennsylvanian at seeing his 
native soil invaded and the very home of his child- 
hood threatened with fire and sword, the general 
stir and clash of arms in the marching columns, had 
wrought his mind up to the point of taking this step. 
But the gist of the projected order lay not in the 
appeal to the patriotic, but in the threat to the base 
and cowardly. Hancock was sternly resolved that 
the betrayal of good troops by bad in the crisis of 
battle should, so far as his command was concerned, 
cease then and there ; and that the faint-hearted sol- 
dier should find it safer to do his duty on the line 
than to run away. 

But even while Hancock sat writing, shaping his 
address to his troops, changing one word for an- 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. 103 

Other, his very rank as yet casually omitted from the 
draft, the order came to march at once to Taney- 
town. By the hour the corps reached that place 
all thoughts of a general order had vanished. The 
time had arrived for action, not words. Great news 
had come — news which in the telling made rhetoric 
and argument alike trivial. The left wing of the 
Army of the Potomac, consisting of the First and 
Eleventh Corps, with Buford's division of cavalry, 
the Third Corps following, all under command of 
Major-General John F. Reynolds, had been pushed 
up to Gettysburg — name then little known ! — to see 
if haply anywhere might be found the main body 
of the enemy, thus far hidden away amid clouds of 
raiding parties which covered no small part of the 
fair State of Pennsylvania. Here at Gettysburg 
the intrepid, vigilant, enterprising Buford, searching 
every avenue by which the enemy might approach, 
suddenly experienced the onset of Heth, coming in 
from Chambersburg upon his left, the first of Lee's 
widely scattered divisions to arrive in a general 
movement of concentration at that point ordered 
on the 29th of June, in ignorance of Meade's advance 
northward. Hastily sending word to Reynolds, 
Buford prepared to hold the enemy back until the 
Union infantry could come up. Twelve months 
earlier a Confederate division would have driven 
the Union cavalry before them like chaff; but the 
mounted service had now reached the same degree 



I04 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



of hardiness, tenacity, and endurance which the 
infantry acquired a year earlier. Posting his men 
along the banks of Willoughby Run, a mile or 
more to the northwest of Gettysburg, Buford, with 
the utmost courage and address, holds back the 
advancing Confederates until the head of the 
infantry corps, under Reynolds in person, comes 
rapidly up to the sound of the firing. 

What shall be done in view of the fast-pro- 
ceeding concentration of the enemy ? Lee has, in 
ignorance of Meade's whereabouts, pitched upon 
Gettysburg; and this fortunate choice has given 
him a full twenty-four hours' start in a contest for 
that position. Shall the Army of the Potomac, thus 
put at disadvantage in point of time, relinquish 
Gettysburg and fall back upon Pipe Creek, which 
down to this moment has mainly been in view by 
the headquarters staff as the true defensive line ? 
This is the question Reynolds is called to decide. 
The decision costs him his life but wins for him 
an immortality of glory. Without hesitation he 
orders up his foremost division (Wadsworth's) and 
throws it into action, to contest the advance of 
the Confederates and give time for the rest of 
his own troops and Howard's to come up. Here 
within a brief space he falls dead, paying with 
his life the price of holding Gettysburg for the 
Union arms. It needs not to tell of the fight which 
for hours raged along Willoughby Run and Semi- 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. 



105 



nary Ridge, as the divisions of the First Corps suc- 
cessively arriving, and the Eleventh Corps follow- 
ing, sought to beat back the Confederate columns 
now fast coming upon the field from the northwest, 
from the north, and finally from the northeast. At 
last, in spite of the most gallant resistance, our 
troops are swept from the field in overwhelming 
numbers; Seminary Ridge is lost; the enemy, clos- 
ing in, capture thousands in the streets of Gettys- 
burg; the feeble remnants of the Union corps 
are obliged to retreat to Cemetery Hill and Ceme- 
tery Ridge. Of the sixteen thousand taken into ac- 
tion, scarce five thousand remain with the colors; 
the rest have been left upon the field, killed or 
wounded, or prisoners in the hands of the Confed- 
erates, or are scattered over the hills and plains, 
panic-stricken, broken, and in flight. 

Return we now to Taneytown. Thither had been 
borne the news of the first engagement of the morn- 
ing: conflicting news of gain and loss, and, at last, 
the tidings that Reynolds had fallen. Whether killed 
or only severely wounded was not yet known. Thus 
inauspiciously had the battle opened. The enemy, 
so eagerly sought, had been found only too well. 
General Meade had grave reason to believe that his 
left wing was in dire peril. The point where the 
collision had taken place intimated strongly that the 
Confederates were already there in vastly superior 
force. He could not himself go to the front, for he 



I06 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

must remain in communication with tlie more distant 
corps. Reynolds he had trusted as a man trusts his 
brother; but in neither of the two ranking officers left 
at Gettysburg — Doubleday, commanding the First 
Corps after Reynolds's death, Howard, commanding 
the Eleventh Corps, and also now by seniority the 
whole column — had he the confidence he would wish 
to have in an emergency like this, so suddenly devel- 
oped. What should he do ? The Second Corps was 
now arriving at Taneytown, at its head an officer 
who only three weeks before had been a division 
commander. But he was one whose reputation for 
high tactical skill, for single-minded obedience to 
orders, for desperate resolution, whether in attack 
or in defense, for almost magical power over men, 
had steadily risen with each succeeding day of serv- 
ice. He was a man who, wherever he appeared, at 
once, as by a great wave of moral force, lifted the 
hearts of his soldiers through his own intrepid bear- 
ing and joyous courage. Moreover, not having been 
engaged in the struggle of the earlier day, he would 
carry to Gettysburg not only a fresh force of mind 
and will, but a judgment calmer than could possibly 
be those of officers who had long been disputing 
that field against heavy odds. They might shrink 
from retreat before the enemy as a personal dis- 
grace ; he could have no other thought than what 
was best to be done in the situation created by 
the unexpected collision. Moved by these con- 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. 107 

siderations, General Meade issued the following 
order : 

" Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, 
'•July I (i.io P. M.), i86j. 

" Commanding Officer, Second Corps : 

"The Major General Commanding has just been 
informed that General Reynolds has been killed or 
badly wounded. He directs that you turn over the 
command of your corps to General Gibbon, that you 
proceed to the front, and by virtue of this order, in 
case of the truth of General Reynolds's death, you 
assume command of the corps there assembled — 
viz., the Eleventh, First, and Third, at Emmitts- 
burg.* If you think the ground and position there 
a better one on which to fight a battle under exist- 
ing circumstances, you will so advise the general, 
and he will order all the troops up. You know the 
general's views, and General Warren, who is fully 
aware of them, has gone out to see General Rey- 
nolds. 

" Later, i.ij P. Af. 

" Reynolds has possession of Gettysburg, and the 
enemy are reported as falling back from the front of 
Gettysburg. Hold your column ready to move. 
" Very respectfully, 

" Your obedient servant, 

" D. BUTTERFIELD, 

" Ma/or- Genera/ and Chief of Staff." 
* This means that the Third Corps was at Emmittsburg. 



I08 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

Such was the order which on the ist of July sent 
Hancock forward to Gettysburg to take command 
of three army corps over two officers, Howard and 
Sickles, who were his seniors in rank. To the latter 
fact General Meade's attention was called; but he 
replied that he could not help that. In this crisis he 
must have a man whom he knew and could trust ; 
and he knew Hancock and could trust him. With 
such a commission no time was to be lost. The 
command of the Second Corps was turned over to 
Gibbon ; and soon Hancock was being driven at 
top speed in an ambulance, while with Morgan he 
studied the imperfect maps of the region, the best 
which headquarters could provide. The staff and 
the led horses followed. The duty which had been 
charged upon Hancock was more than that of ex- 
tricating from peril the two corps at the front. 
Down to this moment it had been Meade's prevail- 
ing intention to take up the line of Pipe Creek, 
which had been carefully surveyed by the engineers, 
as that best suited for defensive action and as fully 
covering Baltimore. The advance of the left wing 
had been made only with a view to discovering the 
enemy's position and purposes ; and even now it 
might be best, in spite of the opening action, to fall 
back to this line and await Tee's attack there. This 
Hancock was practically to decide for the command- 
ing general ; this it was for which he scanned the 
poor little map that had been furnished him. 




The Battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa., July i, 2, and 3, 1863. 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. 



109 



Fast as the ambulance rolls along, it can not keep 
up with Hancock's impatient mind ; and soon the 
led horses are brought up, and the chief is gallop- 
ing to the front, where, at any time, anything may 
happen. Only those who have once been in such a 
case know how long a road can be, how the distance 
lengthens, and how the throbbing sounds of cannon 
work the hearer into an ecstasy of impatient rage. 
Conjecture goes wild with a thousand thoughts of 
possible disaster, and a sort of shame at being so far 
away stings the soul of the good soldier hastening 
to the relief of his overborne comrades. At the dis- 
tance of about four miles from Gettysburg an am- 
bulance is encountered escorted by a single officer. 
A word tells that it contains the body of the heroic 
Reynolds borne from his last battlefield. A deep 
silence falls upon the galloping staff, and nothing is 
spoken until* from the crest of Cemetery Hill the 
panorama of Gettysburg lies unrolled before them. 

Beautiful as that landscape appears to the eye of 
the peaceful traveler, it is now a scene of terror, 
strewn with the dead and dying and with the wreck 
of battle. More painful still to witness are the dis- 
orderly groups of fugitives hurrying from the field 



* Hancock gives the hour of his arrival as half-past three. 
Howard says four o'clock. Probably no other general in the 
army had so many staff ofhcers who habitually carried notebooks 
and recorded every incident or order, with the hour and the 
minute, as had Hancock. 



I lo GENERAL HANCOCK. 

or skulking behind cover. Down tlie Baltimore road 
to the rear pours a stream of panic-stricken men 
mixed up with led horses, artillery, ammunition 
wagons, and ambulances loaded with the wounded. 
In front, across the valley, Seminary Ridge, on which 
had occurred the sanguinary battle of the morn- 
ing, is bristling with the battalions and batteries of 
Hill's corps ; while Ewell, having seized the town 
with his right, is extending his left to grasp Gulp's 
Hill, from which he would command the road to 
Baltimore. To hold Cemetery Hill, thus threatened, 
there is a single brigade not yet engaged — that of 
Colonel Orlando Smith, about one thousand strong, 
which had been left in reserve when Howard went 
forward to support Reynolds. Here and there rem- 
nants of other brigades have halted, unwilling to re- 
treat farther, yet surveying with gloomy apprehen- 
sion the fast-gathering masses of the Confederates. 
To the left, adown the crest of Cemetery Ridge the 
broken bands of the First Corps, which have done 
transcendent soldierly service during the long hours 
of the day, stand firmly in their place, to keep the 
position for which they have made such awful sac- 
rifices. In front of them, and still farther to the 
left, is the one inspiring feature of the scene : Bu- 
ford's splendid division of cavalry drawn up in line 
of battalions en masse, unshaken and undaunted in 
the face of the Confederate infantry. 

Upon this field of wreck and disorder now ap- 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. m 

pears Hancock. And as the sun shining through a 
rift in the clouds may change a scene of gloom to 
one of beauty, so the coming of this prince of 
soldiers brings life and courage to all. At his call 
the braver spirits flame to their height; the weaker 
souls yield gladly to the impulse of that powerful, 
aggressive, resolute nature. At once the doubtful 
halt on Cemetery Hill is transformed into the con- 
fident assumption of a new line of battle; the fear- 
ful stream adown the Baltimore road is peremptorily 
stopped ; shattered regiments as they reach the hill 
are re-formed; on every side men seek their colors 
with alacrity ; commanders rectify their lines ; ammu- 
nition is brought up; troops are sent to occupy 
Gulp's Hill, threatened by Ewell's divisions; skir- 
mishers are thrown out on the front and right; 
batteries are planted along the crest; every position 
of advantage is occupied with the bravest show of 
force that can be made, with a view to deterring 
the enemy from attacking until the re-enforcements 
now rapidly approaching the field shall arrive. 

In the following words Captain Edward N. Whit- 
tier, of the Fifth Maine Battery which was among 
the last to emerge from the streets of Gettysburg 
and mount the hill, describes the appearance of 
General Hancock on this occasion : " In the center 
of the plateau was a group of general officers and 
orderlies. It was a scene of the utmost activity, 
and yet there was no confusion. Prominent in the 



112 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

group — on horseback, erect, unmoved amid the 
throng of retreating, defeated, and well-nigh worn- 
out soldiers — sat a man born to command, by birth 
and education a soldier of high degree, competent 
to evolve order out of the chaos of retreat, cool, 
calm, self-possessed, the master of himself and his 
place. I rode up to him and, saluting, reported with 
the battery with which I was serving. Turning 
quickly to his right and rear, and pointing to the 
knoll on the northwestern slope of Gulp's Hill, he 
said : ' Do you see that hill, young man ? Put your 
battery there and stay there.' I shall never forget 
the inspiration of his commanding, controlling pres- 
ence or the fresh courage he imparted, his whole 
atmosphere strong and invigorating. And I remem- 
ber (how refreshing to note!) even his linen clean 
and white, his collar wide and free, and his broad 
wristbands showing large and rolling back from his 
firm, finely molded hands." 

Among the remaining officers of the First Corps, 
Colonel Morgan's manuscript narrative particularly 
mentions General Wadsworth for his undaunted 
spirit and his eagerness to renew the fight. General 
G. K. Warren, then Chief Engineer of the Army of 
the Potomac, was also upon the field and rendered 
invaluable service in posting the troops and the 
batteries. At half-past four Hancock dispatched 
his senior aid. Major Mitchell, with word to Meade 
that Gettysburg offered a suitable position for de- 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. 113 

fense, though somewhat exposed to be turned by 
the left. An hour had sufficed to make a great 
change within the Union lines; a vastly greater 
change as seen from the enemy's ground. Though 
not a man besides Hancock and his staff had come 
upon the field since Seminary Ridge was lost, Lee 
hesitated to give the order to attack positions, 
naturally strong, which appeared to have been sud- 
denly occupied by fresh troops, so brave was the 
show of force everywhere made. He instructed 
Ewell to feel our line on its right, but not to bring 
on a general engagement. That delay saved the 
field of Gettysburg to the Union arms. 

At half-past five re-enforcements began to arrive. 
These were from Slocum's Twelfth Corps. The 
First Division, that of ^Villiams, turned to the right 
on approaching the field, and went into position 
near Wolf's Hill. The Second Division, that of 
Geary, Hancock directed to prolong our line to the 
left, towards the Round Tops. Slocum himself 
coming up, Hancock turned over the command of 
the field to him, as senior in rank, and rode off to 
confer with General Meade. About three miles 
away he met his own corps, which he halted that it 
might be available against any movement by the 
enemy to turn our left flank. Sickles's column 
meanwhile was arriving at Gettysburg, and the posi- 
tion was for the time secure. All night, however, 
the good troops of the Fifth and Sixth Corps were 



114 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



pressing forward in ghostly columns toward the 
battlefield in a long, unstaying march. 

Such were Hancock's services on the memorable 
first day at Gettysburg. Two points require to be 
emphasized further than they have been in the 
course of this narrative. The first was Hancock's 
keen perception of the danger of a Confederate 
movement around our left. To the other officers 
who overlooked the field on the afternoon of the 
ist of July it seemed that Cemetery Hill and Culp's 
Hill were especially likely to be the points of 
attack. Meade himself, coming up during the 
night, was so impressed with the same idea that he 
gave little or no attention, then or in the morning, 
to the left. But Hancock's first message pointed 
out the danger of a movement by the enemy in this 
direction which was so painfully manifested on the 
following day. The first use he made of the re-en- 
forcements arriving on the field was to send them 
southward, two of Geary's regiments actually pass- 
ing the night at Little Round Top, though called 
away the next morning without being replaced. 
And, on Hancock's return to general headquarters, 
he halted the Second Corps on the Taneytown road. 

The second point to be further insisted on is 
Hancock's relations to Howard. I have given the 
text of- the instructions under which Hancock went 
up to Gettysburg; and no one who knew aught of 
that officer should need to be assured that, if ordered 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. 115 

to take command of any force, he took command of 
it with all which that implies, and fully exercised the 
authority given him until he formally relinquished it 
to some one who had the right to receive it. Yet, 
in an article in the Atlantic Monthly of July, 1876, 
General Howard sought to make out that Han- 
cock did not assume command upon his arrival at 
Cemetery Hill, but merely acted as a sort of per- 
sonal representative of, or temporary chief of staff 
to. General Meade. The following is his descrip- 
tion of the meeting and what immediately followed : 
" General Hancock greeted me in his usual frank 
and cordial manner, and used these words : ' General 
Meade has sent me to represent him on the field.' 
I replied: 'All right, Hancock, this is no time for 
talking. You take the left of the pike and I will 
arrange these troops to the right ! ' He said no 
more, and moved off in his peculiar, gallant style to 
gather scattered brigades and put them into posi- 
tion. I noticed that he sent Wadsworth's division, 
without consulting me, to the right of the Eleventh 
Corps, to Gulp's Hill; but as it was just the thing 
to do I made no objection — probably would not 
have made any in any event — but worked away, 
assisted by my officers, organizing and arranging 
batteries and infantry along the stone wall and 
fences toward Gettysburg and along the northern 
crest of the ridge. It did not strike me then that 
Hancock, without troops, was doing more than 



Il6 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

directing matters as .a temporary chief of staff for 
Meade." 

Upon this view of his relations to Hancock on 
the first day at Gettysburg, General Howard has 
insisted down to the present time. When, on the 
4th of February, 1891, I had occasion to read a 
paper on General Hancock before the New York 
Commandery of the Loyal Legion, General Howard, 
in conversation with me, took exception to the state- 
ments I had made on this subject, and gave his own 
account of the ist of July in substantially the terms 
of the Atlantic article. " There we were," he said, 
"working away just like two brothers." Now, I 
desire to remark, first, that if there was any officer 
in the Union army who was incapable of perform- 
ing in the "two-brothers act," it was Winfield Scott 
Hancock ; and, secondly, that the whole record is 
dead against General Howard's position. Certainly 
General Abner Doubleday, who succeeded to the 
command of the First Corps upon the death of Rey- 
nolds, was not in doubt that Hancock came to take 
command. In his History of Chancellorsville and 
Gettysburg he says: "About half-past three General 
Hancock arrived with orders from General Meade 
to supersede Howard . . . Howard stated, in a 
subsequent account of the battle, that he merely 
regarded Hancock as a staff officer acting for Gen- 
eral Meade ... I know that he rode over to me 
and told me that he was in command of the field" 



GETTYSBURG.— THE FIRST DAY. ny 

(pp. 150, 151). But Hancock is entitled to be heard 
on this matter in his own words. In the Galaxy 
Magazine of 1876 he published an account of the 
meeting on Cemetery Hill. The following quota- 
tion will suffice : " General Howard claims that 
there was an understanding between us whereby I 
was to take charge of the troops on the left of the 
turnpike while he arranged those on the right. He 
does not disclose the fact that I exercised inde- 
pendent powers; but, in his letter to General 
Meade, already quoted, he says : 'General Hancock 
assisted me in carrying out orders which I had 
already issued.' Now, I had no such understanding 
with General Howard, and I did not so assist him 
in carrying out orders which he had already issued. 
The only pretext for his statement of such an 
understanding is that, as I was about riding away 
to the left, I understood him to indicate to me that 
he would prefer the right, where his troops were 
then posted, for his own position, and he said that 
he would be found there personally ; but there was 
no division of command between General Howard 
and myself. Indeed, one of the first orders I gave 
on assuming the command was for the troops of the 
Eleventh Corps (Howard's) to be pushed forward 
to the stone walls in the next field, to give room 
for development and to deter the enemy's advance. 
And about the same time I addressed a few words 
to his own troops on the left of the pike, with a 



Il8 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

view to encourage them to hold the position while 
our lines were forming. I then rode on to place the 
First Corps farther to the left, in order that we 
should cover the whole of Cemetery Hill, only a 
small portion of which was occupied when I rode 
upon the field. General Doubleday, commanding 
the First Corps after the fall of Reynolds, can give 
positive evidence that I assumed immediate com- 
mand and directed the disposition of his troops as 
soon as he fell back to Cemetery Hill. General 
Buford was also directed by me to hold his com- 
mand in the flat to the left and front of Cemetery 
Kill as long as possible, in order to give me time 
to form our line of battle on the hill itself. I took 
charge of all our forces on the field, as my orders 
directed me to do, and, seeing the importance of the 
point, immediately sent Wadsworth's division and a 
battery to occupy Gulp's Hill. I had no idea of 
consulting General Howard as to the propriety of 
that movement, which he states he noticed but to 
which he ' made no objection.' I ordered the move- 
ment because, as commander of the troops and be- 
ing responsible for what was done on the field, I 
considered it proper that it should be promptly 
made." 



CHAPTER VII. 

GETTYSBURG. THE SECOND DAY. 

The morning of the 2d of July found General 
Lee possessing the advantage of superior concen- 
tration, Pickett's division and Law's brigade alone 
being more than three miles away, as well as the 
great advantage arising from the prestige of vic- 
tory in the encounter of the first day. On the 
Union side the Second Corps was brought upon 
the field early in the morning; but the Fifth and 
two brigades of the Third were still on the march, 
while the Sixth Corps could not possibl) be brought 
up until late in the afternoon. 

It is now time to speak more at length of the 
battlefield. The position which the Union army 
had taken up, after the severe fighting on Wil- 
loughby Run and Seminary Ridge, had the general 
shape of a fishhook. The long shank was repre- 
sented by the line drawn from the Round Tops 
on the left northward along Cemetery Ridge. Just 
where the turn took place the ridge rose into 
Cemetery Hill, directly beneath which, in front, lay 
the town of Gettysburg. As our line from this 
9 



I20 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

point curved to the rear it was extended along the 
north face of Cemetery Hill ; thence through low 
ground to and over Gulp's Hill, which formed the 
extreme right of our position so far a'S the infantry 
was concerned, though during the 3d of July and 
a portion of the 2d the cavalry prolonged our line 
still farther to and beyond Wolf's Hill on our right 
rear. Within the Union position were the Baltimore 
pike, running southeast from Gettysburg, and the 
Taneytown road, running south. Both these roads 
ran out through our lines, near together, over 
Gemetery Hill and entered Gettysburg under cover 
of our guns. The Gonfederate forces occupied the 
town opposite our right center, and curved round 
the Union line to confront our troops on Gulp's 
Hill. Opposite our left center and left the Gon- 
federates held Seminary Ridge, at a general distance 
of fourteen hundred yards. The two armies were 
nearly equal in numbers, with the advantage slightly 
in favor of the Union forces. 

The generally clean and neat division, geograph- 
ically, of the field was marred in one particular by 
a subordinate ridge which ran from Gemetery 
Ridge, near Gettysburg, diagonally across the plain 
to Seminary Ridge, nearly opposite our extreme 
left, reaching Seminary Ridge at a point known in 
the accounts of the battle as the Peach Orchard. 
Along the subordinate ridge described ran the road 
from Gettysburg to Emmittsburg. This road, there- 



GETTYSBURG.— THE SECOND DAY. 121 

fore, ran out from our skirmish line on the light 
center and ran into the Confederate lines opposite 
our left. While, in a broad view of the field, this 
ridge is properly called a subordinate one, it was 
yet, for a certain distance, after Cemetery Ridge 
had fallen away to the level of the plain and be- 
fore the ground began to rise again into Little 
Round Top, somewhat higher and better as a mili- 
tary position than the part of our line opposite it. 

The disposition of our troops was as follows : 
General Slocum, commanding the right wing, con- 
sisting of his own, the Twelfth Corps, together with 
what remained of the First and Eleventh Corps, held 
Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill, the whole curved 
portion of the Union Ime and that which overlooked 
the town. General Hancock held the center, his 
corps being drawn up along Cemetery Ridge. The 
Third Corps, under Sickles, formed the left, extend- 
ing toward, but not reaching. Little Round Top. 
The latter point had, as stated, been in a degree 
covered by troops of the Twelfth Corps during the 
night; but these had been withdrawn. It was part 
of the matter subsequently in controversy between 
Generals Meade and Sickles whether the orders to 
the latter had not required him to hold Little Round 
Top in force. In fact, it was not occupied even by 
the Third Corps skirmishers. 

During the morning of the 2d the Union army 
naturally looked for a renewal of hostilities by the 



122 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

Confederates. But the day wore on, hour after hour, 
without anything more serious than a reconnoissance 
from the Third Corps in front of the Emmittsburg 
road, and some fighting on the skirmish line in front 
of the Second Corps. Responsibility for this long 
delay has remained in dispute. Generally speaking, 
the blame has been cast upon Longstreet, all the 
more since his accession to the Republican party 
and his acceptance of office under President Grant. 
It is alleged that Longstreet was in the early morn- 
ing ordered to move around the left flank of the 
Union forces with a portion of his corps, and at the 
same time make a vigorous front attack with the 
remainder. A success on the Union left was to be 
followed up by the other Confederate troops, in 
order successively from their right to their left. 

However it came about, the attack was, in fact, 
delayed until about four o'clock in the afternoon, at 
which time the Fifth Corps was up on our side and 
lay, resting after its long march, along Rock Creek, at 
the Baltimore pike. Meanwhile, however, a change 
had taken place in the disposition of the Union 
forces — a change fraught with momentous conse- 
quences. General Sickles, dissatisfied with the 
ground on which his corps was drawn up and see- 
ing that the ridge over which the Emmittsburg road 
ran in his front was at some points higher than his 
own, suddenly and without notice either to Meade 
or to Hancock, advanced his troops to the Emmitts- 



GETTYSBURG.— THE SECOND DAY, 



123 



burg road, along which he extended his line (Hum- 
phreys's division on the right) as far as the Peach 
Orchard, from which point it was "refused," or 
drawn back at an angle toward, but not to, Little 
Round Top, the left of the corps resting on the 
"Devil's Den," a wild, rocky bit of country strange- 
ly in contrast with the general character of the 
region. So that when Longstreet, after compassing 
his long detour, brought Hood's and McLaws's di- 
visions up against the Union left, that line had been 
advanced to meet him part way, and offered to his 
attack an angle both sides of which it was in his 
power to enfilade by artillery fire. 

The causes which had delayed the Confederate 
attack took nothing from its vehemence when once 
it fell. The men of the Third Corps met the assault 
with the utmost bravery, battling long and hard as 
became the old divisions of Hooker and Kearney. 
But even before the troops along the Emmittsburg 
road and from the Peach Orchard to the " Devil's 
Den " were assailed, the Confederates were passing 
around Sickles's flank to lay hold on Little Round 
Top, so strangely left undefended. It was the pre- 
science and prompt action of General Gouverneur 
K. Warren which discerned the hostile advance in 
this direction and brought up the brigade of Vin- 
cent from the Fifth Corps, which, after a deadly 
struggle, often hand to hand, defeated this danger- 
ous movement and made the Union flank secure. 



124 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



But now the long-prepared attack fell with dead- 
ly fury upon the left of the Third Corps at the 
" Devil's Den," and extended gradually along its 
entire line. At last the center was broken at the 
Peach Orchard, and both the lines which formed the 
fatal angle were taken in reverse and rear by the 
eager Confederates, who poured in great numbers 
through the gap they had made. In this appeared 
the natural effects of the error committed by Sickles 
in advancing his line. The troops which were hur- 
ried to his aid came into positions in which they 
fought on unequal terms and from which each divi- 
sion was in turn driven out by the Confederates 
appearing on its flank. Barnes's division of the 
Fifth Corps, Caldwell's of the Second, and Ayers's 
" regular " division were successively thrown into 
action, only to be forced back with the loss of nearly 
half their numbers. This, however, did not prevent 
the display of the utmost gallantry; and the battle 
on the left, during the afternoon of the 2d of July 
at Gettysburg, will always be celebrated for its deeds 
of daring and for the stern and long resistance of- 
fered to the Confederate advance. 

But, meanwhile, what of the left center ? We 
have seen that Longstreet with two divisions had 
attacked the Union left, both in flank and in front, 
and had succeeded in driving Sickles out of the 
Peach Orchard and in beating back the troops of 
the Fifth and Second Corps sent to his support, al- 



GETTYSBURG.— THE SECOND DAY. 125 

though Little Round Top had been made secure by 
the sagacity and energy of Warren. It was part of 
the scheme of battle that, so soon as Longstreet 
should gain ground, the other divisions of Lee's 
army should advance, in order from right to left, 
and take up the assault upon the Union position. 
The corps on Longstreet's left was Hill's, and Hill's 
right division was Anderson's. This division, ac- 
cordingly, should have advanced immediately upon 
the breaking through of Sickles's line ; and its ad- 
vance would have been straight against the left of 
the Second Corps. What, in fact, occurred? 

Hancock had, with great anxiety, seen the throw- 
ing forward of Sickles's corps to the Emmittsburg 
road. As he watched the movement of Humphreys's 
division he turned to his staff and said: "Gentle- 
men, that is a splendid advance. But," he added 
after a moment's pause, " those troops will be com- 
ing back again very soon." Sickles's change of 
position had opened a wide gap between the Third 
Corps and the Second. Partially to fill this space, 
the Fifteenth Massachusetts and Eighty-second New 
York were thrown forward to the Emmittsburg road, 
at the Codori House, and Brown's Rhode Island 
battery was pushed to the front to cover with its fire 
a portion of the field thus exposed. And so the left 
center of our line waited to see what would come of 
Sickles's venturesome initiative. It was even later 
in the afternoon when General Meade learned the 



126 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

error which his subordinate had committed. The 
order to recall the Third Corps was on his lips when 
the roar of musketry told that the battle was joined, 
and that, for good or for ill, Sickles must be sup- 
ported in his advanced position. 

The course of this narrative does not require us 
to give a detailed account of the terrible fighting on 
the left : in the Peach Orchard, on the rugged slopes 
of Little Round Top, amid the rocky gorges of the 
" Devil's Den," or in the historical Wheat Field 
where Caldwell's division of the Second Corps lost 
half of all the officers and men it carried into action, 
including the heroic Zook, of New York, Cross, of 
New Hampshire, and Roberts, of Pennsylvania. 
With that division, his own — that of which he took 
command amid the wreck and disorder of Antietam 
and which he had led with so much glory at Fred- 
ericksburg and at Chancellorsville — duty did not 
allow Hancock to go when it was sent down to the 
left to assist its hard-pressed comrades of the Third 
Corps. It was his part to remain with his other 
divisions and hold the left center, on which at any 
time the storm might burst. But now, up from the 
left comes the news that Longstreet has driven 
everything before him and Sickles has been des- 
perately wounded ; and soon an order from General 
Meade places Hancock in command of the whole 
left wing. At once he rides away, taking with him 
Willard's brigade of Hays's division. He sees Hum- 



GETTYSBURG.— THE SECOND DAY. 



127 



phreys re-forming his broken brigades, scarcely of 
a regiment's strength, many banners and few men, 
along the line he had left in that ill-fated advance. 
At every point the enemy are streaming forward to 
press their advantage, running over half a score of 
Union guns which the loss of horses and men has 
left in their hands. At once he directs Willard's 
brigade to charge the exulting Confederates. Willard 
is killed by Hancock's side, and half his men fall ; 
but the shock of that gallant charge throws the 
enemy into confusion, stays their progress, and re- 
covers a battery of guns. Directing Colonel Sher- 
rill, who has succeeded to the command on Willard's 
death, to hold his ground at all cost, Hancock rides 
rapidly back to the right, looking for re-enforce- 
ments. There are large spaces on which not a com- 
pany of Union troops is to be found. Out from the 
bushes, just in front, he sees a column emerge in 
haste and disorder. Taking it for a portion of the 
Third Corps driven in, he rides toward it to halt 
and post the troops; but is undeceived by a volley 
which twice wounds his brave and faithful aid, 
Captain Miller, the only officer whom the turmoil 
of the fight has left with him. Hastily directing 
Miller to ride away as fast as his horse will carry 
him, he spurs his own horse down a swale, which 
for the moment half shelters him, till he en- 
counters a regiment advancing in column by fours 
from the Union side. Riding up to the colonel 



128 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

and pointing to the brigade of Alabama troops 
from which he has just escaped, he cries out: 
" Colonel, do you see those colors ? Then take 
them." At once the gallant First Minnesota, with- 
out waiting to come from column into line, hurls 
itself upon the foe. Eighty out of every hundred 
of the brave Minnesotians go down — colonel, lieu- 
tenant colonel, major, adjutant, every officer but 
three ; but the effort avails, and the enemy are 
driven back in disorder. But already two more of 
Anderson's brigades are getting to work. They 
charge across the space between the lines, overrun 
the regiments at the Codori House, killing both 
colonels and killing or wounding half the men, cap- 
ture Brown's guns, and swarm forward to attempt 
the main line of the Second Corps. Into the gap 
Hancock directs the Nineteenth Massachusetts and 
Forty -second New York, which advance bravely 
but are driven out by overwhelming numbers with 
terrible losses. For the moment the wave of the 
Confederate advance flings its foam over the posi- 
tion held by Gibbon's division. It looks as though 
the great contest of the war were here and now and 
finally to take place. But, through some strange 
misconception, Anderson's remaining brigades fail 
to come forward ; and the other divisions of Hill, 
waiting by orders for them, also stand m their place. 
Those already engaged lash our lines from the base 
of Little Round Top to the " Clump of Trees." 



GETTYSBURG.— THE SECOND DAY. 



129 



It is only for the moment. Up from the rear 
advance the re-enforcements which the news of 
adverse fortunes has drawn over from the right. 
Meade, Hancock, Morgan, and Mitchell direct them 
to the positions which they are to fill. Doubleday's 
division of the First Corps comes to the support 
of the Second; farther to the left McGilvray's ar- 
tillery brigade forms behind Sickles's broken troops ; 
and Lockwood's Maryland brigade, supported by 
Williams's division of the Twelfth Corps, charges 
forward almost to the Emmittsburg road and finally 
restores our line in this part of the field. From 
Little Round Top, too, Crawford's division of the 
Pennsylvania Reserves advances over ground which 
had been lost ; while the Sixth Corps, just come in 
from its long march, joins in the movement or 
forms in support behind the left. Before the stern 
array of the arriving troops the men of Longstreet 
and Hill, worn out by the desperate struggles of the 
afternoon, give way surlily and in good order. 

But though the great battle of the left, with all 
its thrilling episodes, with all its tremendous possi- 
bilities, with all its terrific losses, is over, the day's 
work is not yet at an end. Just as the fighting dies 
down on the Union left it springs up on the right 
and right center, where Ewell finally gets to work to 
do what he should have done hours before. The 
brigades of Hays and Hoke, supported by Gor- 
don, advance upon Cemetery Hill from the north. 



I30 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

drive Howard's troops from their works and their 
guns, and establish themselves upon the crest. But 
their triumph is soon past. Hancock, hearing the 
outburst and knowing the danger that lies in the 
enfeebled condition of the Eleventh Corps, has 
promptly and without waiting for orders sent Car- 
roll's long-legged Western brigade rapidly by the 
right flank to come up behind Cemetery Hill. That 
gallant command, right gallantly led, arrives in the 
nick of time, pushes its way through the disordered 
troops and, throwing itself furiously upon the ene- 
my, drives them down the slope, recovers Howard's 
batteries and restores his line. But still all is not 
over. Farther around to our right Johnson's Con- 
federate division pushes its way into a portion of 
the works abandoned by the troops of the Twelfth 
Corps which had been sent late in the afternoon to 
the support of Sickles, though it is beaten back from 
the portion of the corps line which is held by that 
stout old soldier, General George S. Greene. And 
now from right to left the clamor of voices, the 
thunder of guns dies down; and the second day of 
Gettysburg passes into history. 

After night had fallen the corps commanders of 
the Army of the Potomac were called to the head- 
quarters of General Meade to deliberate upon the 
morrow. The outlook was indeed gloomy. On the 
first day the Eleventh Corps had been put nearly 
hors de combat, and the First Corps had been reduced 



GETTYSBURG.— THE SECOND DAY. 131 

to the size of a division. During the afternoon of 
the day just closed the Third Corps had been ahuost 
literally "cut to pieces." Two divisions of the Fifth 
Corps and one of the Second had lost half their 
men in the contests in the Wheat Field and around 
the base of Little Round Top. In all, twenty thou- 
sand men had gone out of the forces that on the 
ist of July had been directed upon Gettysburg, to 
meet the columns which Lee had so unexpectedly 
turned upon that town of fate. Moreover, upon 
our extreme right the enemy were in possession of 
a portion of the breastworks abandoned by the 
Twelfth Corps when it marched to the left, and had 
almost laid hands upon the Baltimore pike. 

Yet the spirit of the army was high and martial. 
Alike commanding of^cers and men in the ranks felt 
that the battle was still to be fought, and on this very 
ground; and from that encounter, however protract- 
ed and however severe, they did not shrmk. Ma- 
licious tongues and pens have asserted that in the 
council of war on Thursday night General Meade's 
disposition was to retreat from the field to the line 
of Pipe Creek ; but this slander, with which the 
military fortunes of several important persons had 
been intimately connected, has fallen dead before 
the calm and dignified assertions of Meade and the 
corroborative testimony of Sedgwick, Howard, Wil- 
liams, and Gibbon. When the council of war broke 
up, the order for the day was that the Army of 



132 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



the Potomac should stand in its place and receive 
whatever blows the Army of Northern Virginia 
might deliver ; and as the news of this resolution 
ran through the ranks, from Gulp's Hill to Round 
Top, every soldier's heart responded with a fervent 
Amen ! 



CHAPTER VIII. 

GETTYSBURG. THE THIRD DAY. 

When day broke upon the 3d of July it found 
the Army of tlie Potomac in the identical positions 
to which Hancock had directed the broken brigades 
of the First and Eleventh Corps and the first re- 
enforcements arriving upon the field in the after- 
noon of Wednesday. While, in general, the plan 
of battle was strictly defensive, it was imperative 
that Johnson should at once be driven out of the 
breastworks upon the right which had been cap- 
tured by him late in the previous evening. To this 
task the Twelfth Corps, under Slocum, supported by 
Shaler's brigade from the Sixth, promptly and gal- 
lantly addressed itself. Johnson had been heavily 
re-enforced, and the nature of the country made 
combinations for the attack upon him exceedingly 
difficult; but the Union troops would not be denied 
and, after a bloody fight, the enemy were driven 
out and our line became through all its length 
complete. And now the Army of the Potomac 
awaits in silence, in suspense, in anxiety, but not in 
dread, the attack which it is known to all, from the 



134 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

highest to the lowest, Lee must needs make. For 
him to retreat without a decisive encounter is mor- 
ally impossible. Neither the political nor the mili- 
tary exigencies of the Confederacy will admit of it. 
But will he seek first to manoeuvre the Army of the 
Potomac out of its position by a movement around 
one or the other of its flanks ? If he commits him- 
self to an immediate attack, will it be against our 
left, where the terrible battle of the second day has 
barely ceased to rage ; against our left center, along 
Cemetery Ridge, now held by Hancock ; against 
our right center on Cemetery Hill, which Early and 
Rodes only last night attempted ; or against our 
right, from which the Confederates have this very 
morning been driven ? As the veteran regiments of 
the Potomac army lie awaiting the coming assault, 
does each soldier more hope that the honor of the 
co'nflict may come to him and to his comrades under 
the same tattered flag; or that the decision of the 
Confederate commander may direct the blow upon 
some other part of the long line, and the cup thus 
pass from his own lips ? Does the long delay bring 
relief to the feelings with which the troops arose 
from then- bivouac ; or does it but intensify the sense 
of strain as the period of suspense is prolonged ? 
Only for himself can any of the survivors of that 
memorable day answer these questions. 

Meanwhile Hancock was intently engaged in 
preparing for the defense of the long line assigned 



GETTYSBURG.— THE THIRD DAY. 135 

to him, which embraced the positions occupied by 
the First Corps, now under Newton, as well as 
those held by the .Second, of which Gibbon had 
taken immediate command. The popular notion 
regarding the third day at Gettysburg greatly ex- 
aggerates the strength of the Union left center. 
Abrupt, and at points even rugged, as were the 
faces of Gulp's and Cemetery Hills, the descent 
from Cemetery Ridge toward the west was not con- 
siderable, even at the first; while, as our line ran 
still farther south, the ridge shrank more and more 
into the plain, until, in the positions where the 
Third Corps had the day before at first been sta- 
tioned, the ground presented scarcely any advan- 
tage over that directly m its front. 

In fact, the point which the Confederate com- 
mander had selected for his great attack was at 
about the middle of Hancock's long line, and was 
also about at the mean as regarded elevation. 
"The clump of trees," which Lee had that morning 
pointed out to Longstreet, stood upon ground which 
a casual observer three or four hundred yards in 
front might have deemed little higher than his 
own, although the eye of a trained artillerist would 
at once have seen that it afforded just elevation 
enough for the best effect of canister. To the 
right of this position lay the division of Alexan- 
der Hays. ^ " The clump of trees" itself and the 
ground immediately to the left was occupied by the 



136 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

division of Gibbon, while farther on was Double- 
day's division of the First Corps (comprising the 
Second Vermont brigade, of which we shall have 
much to say), and then Caldwell's division of the 
Second Corps. The shorter convex line of the 
Union army allowed the service of far less artillery 
than was massed upon the longer concave line of 
the Confederates ; but, on the other hand, the for- 
mation of the Union line facilitated in a high de- 
gree the passage of troops from flank to flank, as 
the exigencies of battle should require. Fmally, 
the convexity of the Union line might make the 
positions of the artillery reserve, of the ammuni- 
tion trains and of headquarters and staff an almost 
intolerable one, as the fire of three or four miles 
of batteries should converge into the narrow space 
between the Union wings. 

I esteem it a great good fortune to have from 
the pen of a soldier, a jurist and a man of affairs, 
the account of an interview with General Hancock 
just before the mighty cannonade of the 3d of July 
broke out. There are countless tributes — in letters, 
in books, and in official reports — to the bearing and 
demeanor of the commander of the Second Corps 
upon the field of battle ; but the impression made by 
Hancock upon a man like Wheelock G. Veazey* 

* Then Colonel of the Sixteenth Vermont regiment ; subse- 
quently Justice of the Supreme Court of Vermont, Commander in 
Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, and now (1894) a mem- 
ber of the Interstate Commerce Commission. 



GETTYSBURG.— THE THIRD DAY. 



137 



can not fail to be of interest. Colonel Veazey had, 
on the night of the 2d, been on duty as the Field 
Officer of the Day for Stannard's brigade, and had 
established the picket line of that command over a 
portion of the ground afterward swept by the great 
charge of the 3d. Owing to the exigencies of the 
service, the men on picket had not been relieved 
in the morning, but were still kept out as skir- 
mishers, closely engaged with the enemy's sharp- 
shooters. About one o'clock Colonel Veazey rode 
back to report the exhausted condition of his men 
and see if he could not obtain an order for their 
relief. The following are his words : 

'* The general said he had had them in mind all 
day and would have sent out reliefs but that he was 
afraid it could not be done without considerable 
loss ; but, as it was quiet on the front at that time, 
he would order a relief and have them report to me 
at his headquarters, and asked me to remain there 
with him until they came up. I had served in the 
same division with him since the organization of the 
Potomac army until after the Peninsula campaign. 
I saw him when he turned the rebel left flank with 
his brigade at Williamsburg, had seen him in other 
battles of that campaign, and had often been thrilled 
by his proud and fearless bearing in action. But I 
had never seen him when he looked every inch the 
magnificent, ideal soldier so truly as on this oc- 
casion. I knew from every word and look that 



138 GENERAL HAN'COCK. 

General Hancock had correctly divined the deter- 
mination of the men who lay along the crest to the 
right and left to stay there and never be driven 
therefrom. He knew that they as well as he appre- 
ciated the consequences of defeat. They knew him ; 
and believed that whatever tactical skill and cour- 
age could attain he would accomplish. Leader and 
men were never better suited to each other. As he 
repeatedly examined his line with a field glass, I 
could see the expression of satisfaction, confidence, 
and impatience. But he had not long to wait, for, 
just as the first detail he had ordered was ap- 
proaching, the signal gun from the opposite crest 
was fired, followed in a minute by one hundred and 
forty others." 

The great battle of the third day had begun. 
To prepare the way for his daring and resolute in- 
fantry, Lee had organized one of the mightiest can- 
nonades in the history of war. Nearly a hundred 
and fifty guns had been brought into action along 
Seminary Ridge and now turned their grim muz- 
zles upon the crest which Longstreet's column 
was to assault. Owing to the nature of the Union 
position, only eighty guns could be brought to bear 
in reply, while, from the same cause, the rear of our 
line was peculiarly subject to the effects of the hos- 
tile fire. The whole space behind Cemetery Ridge 
was in a moment rendered uninhabitable. General 
headquarters were broken up ; the supply and re- 



GETTYSBURG.— THE THIRD DAY. 



139 



serve ammunition trains were driven out; motley 
hordes of camp followers poured down the Balti- 
more pike or spread over the fields to the rear. 
Upon every side caissons exploded ; horses were 
struck down by hundreds; the air was filled with 
fiying missiles ; shells tore up the ground and then 
bounded for another and perhaps more deadly flight, 
or burst above the crouching troops and sent their 
ragged fragments down in deadly showers. Never 
had a storm so dreadful burst upon mortal men. 
As soon as the cannonade opened, Hancock mounted 
his horse, and with his staff behind him and his 
corps flag fiying, rode slowly along the front of his 
line that every man might see that his general was 
with him in the storm. Thousands of soldiers, 
crouching close to the ground under the bitter hail, 
looked up at that calm, stately form, that handsome, 
proud face, that pennon bearing the well-known 
trefoil ; and found courage longer to endure the 
pelting of the pitiless gale. Only once was the 
cavalcade interrupted ; so furious was the fire, his 
favorite black charger became unmanageable, and 
Hancock was obliged to dismount and borrow the 
horse of an aid to complete the circuit of his line. 

For nearly two hours the cannonade lasted. 
Long before it died down, the batteries of the corps 
to the right and of the corps to the left had ceased 
to respond, reserving their ammunition for what was 
to follow; but Hancock knew well where the com- 



140 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



ing assault was to fall, and by his direction the 
batteries of the Second Corps continued firing to 
the last, for he would not allow his troops to be dis- 
heartened by the silence of their own guns.* And 
now, at nearly three o'clock, the fire of the Con- 
federate artillery slackens ; and across the plain, 
upon Seminary Ridge, the hostile columns are seen 
forming. Braver men never trod the earth than 
form the fourteen brigades which are to be launched 
against our lines. Pettigrew's five constitute the 
left. Pickett's three, the flower of Virginia chiv- 
alry, are on the right. Thomas and McGowan 
are to cover the flank of Pettigrew ; Wilcox and 
Perry, the flank of Pickett ; while Lane and Scales 
are to support the attacking column. 

But Longstreet hesitates. Too well he knows 
the courage and endurance of the army he is to 
encounter. For a moment, and again for a mo- 
ment, he delays to give the order to advance. He 
has to be reminded that precious time is passing, 
and that the giant cannonade must be promptly 
followed up or its effect will be lost. At last the 
word is given, whether by him or by a staff officer ; 
and the gallant troops he has marshaled move down 
the slopes of Seminary Ridge. At once the Union 



* In the Century Company's War Book, vol. iii, pp. 385-3S7, 
may be found the discussion between General Henry J. Hunt, Chief 
of Artillery, and myself as to the expediency of Hancock's course 
in this matter. 



GETTYSBURG.— THE THIRD DAY. 



141 



batteries on Cemetery Hill and about Little Round 
Top open fire. The plain between the two lines once 
more shrieks with flying missiles. A fairer mark was 
never offered ; better artillerists never served their 
guns. In front of every regiment in the long Con- 
federate line bursts the deadly shrapnel, sending its 
whistling bullets on into the living mass. But the 
ranks are closed without a tremor, and steadily and 
swiftly the divisions of Pettigrew and Pickett move 
forward to their great enterprise. 

And now the guns of the Second Corps, which 
have thus far, from want of shell and shrapnel, 
been silent during the Confederate advance, open 
once more; and the ranks of Pettigrew and Pickett 
are torn with canister from the guns of Woodruff, 
Arnold, Gushing, Rorty, and Cowan. These gallant 
officers serve their batteries as coolly as if they were 
not looking into the faces of ten thousand rapidly 
advancing foemen. " No. i, Fire ! No. 2, Fire ! " re- 
sounds monotonously from right to left of each 
battery, while the hot guns belch their flame and 
smoke and leaden hail into the very faces of the 
enemy. At last the infantry of Hays and Gibbon 
open the fire they have spontaneously reserved for 
the critical moment. Before the blazing muzzles of 
those thousands of veteran rifles the Confederate 
lines for a moment stagger and reel ; the ground is 
strewn with dead and dying. But the blood of Vir- 
ginia and North Carolina is up ; the colors that have 



142 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



fallen are lifted again and waved defiantly in air; 
the still advancing lines bend themselves against the 
storm of lead as a man leans forward to breast a 
furious gale; they are so near that a few minutes 
must decide whether Gettysburg is lost or won. 

Now three things occur which must be narrated 
in succession, though they happen, if not all at 
once, then with inappreciable intervals: (i) Of the 
five brigades of Pettigrew, that on the extreme left, 
Brockenborough's Virginians, enfiladed by the guns 
from Cemetery Hill, breaks and goes to the rear; 
the remaining brigades, partly under the influence 
of the same cause, partly recoiling from the steady 
fire of Hays's line, draw in upon Pickett's troops, 
heaping up on the center, as one has seen in so many 
Confederate assaults, while Lane's and Scales's 
brigades close up from the rear : (2) Stannard's 
Vermont brigade, away down on the left, is thrown 
forward upon the Confederate right, driving the 
brigade of Kemper before it; (3) at "the clump of 
trees," which hours before had been designated as 
the point of attack, the more daring of the assail- 
ants, led by Armistead, Hancock's old companion in 
arms, force back the line of the Seventy-first Penn- 
sylvania, kill Gushing and his gunners among their 
pieces, and wave the Stars and Bars in the very 
center of the Union position. 

Where, in this crisis of the action, is Hancock ? 
He has marked the recoil of the Confederates 



GETTYSBURG.— THE THIRD DAY. 



H3 



from Hays's front ; he sees the enemy swarming 
up against the stone wall. Directing upon the head 
of their column Devereux's Nineteenth Massachu- 
setts and Mallon's Forty-second New York, he gal- 
lops to the left, calling to Gibbon as he goes to 
advance his troops against the head of the assault- 
ing column ; then dashes down to the Vermont 
brigade, which lies in advance of the general line, 
covered by brush and by the irregularity of the 
ground, and orders them to change-front-forward to 
the right and advance against the Confederate flank. 
Already the Vermonters are up, probably to execute 
that very manoeuvre by the command of their gal- 
lant leader, General Stannard. It is a place where 
no mounted man has been seen for hours, where no 
mounted man can possibly live for five minutes. 
Hardly has Hancock reached Stannard's side, and 
with word and gesture seeks to convey his command 
amid the roar of battle, when a bullet strikes him 
near the groin and he falls out of his saddle into 
the arms of Benedict and Hooker, of Stannard's 
staff. Randall's Thirteenth Vermont, followed close 
by Veazey's Sixteenth, swing themselves forward 
and wheel into line to the right, opening fire upon 
the Confederate flank, which cringes and curls under 
the stroke. Yet still lying there, his wound spout- 
ing blood, Hancock raises himself upon his elbow to 
watch the progress of the fight ; and as Veazey passes 
by with his gallant regiment, calls him to himself, 



144 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

clasps his hand as in the old days, and, in a voice still 
martial and stirring, cries, " Go in, Colonel, and give 
it to them on the flank." And soon, rismg to a roar 
that extends from Cemetery Hill to the Round Tops, 
a shout along the Union line tells that the great at- 
tack has been repulsed. The wall of fire which Han- 
cock, Gibbon, and Hays had drawn around the head 
of the Confederate column as it lay within the Union 
lines had been too much for the endurance of the 
men of Pickett and Pettigrew. Armistead had gone 
down, and with him the bravest of the adventurous 
few who crossed the stone wall ; many a flag had 
dropped to earth never again to be lifted save as a 
trophy. Hunt, chief of artillery ; Mitchell and Has- 
kell, of the staff; Webb, commanding the brigade 
on which the attack fell, had displayed prodigies 
of valor in bringing up troops to meet the ene- 
my ; and at last, with one great spontaneous surge, 
the men of the Second Corps went forward, gather- 
ing in "prisoners by thousands and battle flags in 
sheaves " * — and Gettysburg was won. 

It was not until the repulse was complete that 
Hancock allowed himself to sink to the ground and 
gave himself up to the good corps surgeon, Dough- 
erty, whom the news had brought to his side. The 
wound was an ugly one and ghastly to see. An on- 
looker has compared it to the stab of a butcher's 

* General Charles Devens, Oration on Meade, 1873. 



GETTYSBURG.— THE THIRD DAY. 



145 



knife. A few minutes of field surgery sufficed to 
stop the flowing blood, and made it safe to lift him 
into the ambulance which was to bear him from the 
corps he had commanded one short month, yet at 
the head of which he had won immortal honor. 

The battle of Gettysburg had been as costly as 
glorious to the Second Corps. The corps had taken 
into the fight fewer than ten thousand muskets ; it 
had lost four thousand three hundred and fifty men, 
of whom three hundred and forty-nine were commis- 
sioned officers. The corps commander had been se- 
verely wounded, as had General Gibbon who suc- 
ceeded to the command when Hancock assumed his 
larger charge. Both of these high officers had fallen 
on the very line of battle or in front of it. The he- 
roic General Zook had been killed, and twelve of as 
brave colonels and lieutenant colonels as the army 
knew : Cross, of New Hampshire ; Willard, Sher- 
rill, Huston, and Thoman, of New York ; Roberts, 
O'Kane, and Tschudy, of Pennsylvania ; Ward and 
Revere, of Massachusetts; Merwin, of Connecticut ; 
and Steele, of Michigan. In its artillery brigade two 
hundred and fifty horses had been killed ; of its five 
battery commanders, all had been wounded, four of 
them mortally. But the corps had trophies to show 
for these tremendous losses. It had captured twenty- 
seven Confederate battle flags and as many prison- 
ers as it had men remaining in its own ranks when 
the fight was over. To it had come the honor of 



146 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

holding the central point upon which the great as- 
sault of the third day had been directed ; and all 
the world knows how bravely, faithfully, and skill- 
fully it repulsed the supreme effort of the army of 
the Confederacy. There, at " the clump of trees," 
the tide of rebellion rose to its greatest height ; and 
thence it was beaten back by the dauntless valor of 
the soldiers of fifteen States who that day along 
Cemetery Ridge upheld the banner of the Union. 

In every great career, whether civil or military, 
there is some one day which is peculiarly memor- 
able ; which, by reason in part of favorable oppor- 
tunities or especially conspicuous position — in part, 
also, through some rare inspiration quickening the 
genius of the statesman or the warrior — becomes 
and to the end remains the crown of that career ; 
the day which that leader's name instinctively sug- 
gests ; the day to which, in disappointment or retire- 
ment, his own thoughts go back as the — for him 
— day of days. Such to Hancock was Gettysburg. 
From the hour when, by his resolution, force of char- 
acter and power over men, he checked the rout of 
the first afternoon, restored order and confidence 
and formed the new lines which were to be held un- 
broken to the last, down to the moment when the 
divisions of Gibbon and Hays, leaping the stone wall 
and rail fences which had partially sheltered them 
during the cannonade and the great charge, gath- 
ered in nearlv thirtv Confederate colors and four 



GETTYSBURG.— THE THIRD DAY. 



H7 



thousand prisoners, Gettysburg was to Hancock all- 
glorious, all-fortunate. Even the desperate wound 
which he received in the moment of victory hardly 
seemed to cast a shadow over the great triumph he 
had achieved during the first month of his career as 
the commander of an army corps. 



CHAPTER IX. 



AFTER GETTYSBURG. 



The wound from which Hancock had fallen 
among the ranks of the Vermont brigade proved 
to be a severe one. On the first examination, it 
was thought to be due wholly to a nail which 
had been driven by an enemy's bullet from the 
wood of the saddle, or from a neighboring fence, 
into the general's thigh near the groin. Six weeks 
later, however, the wound still remaining open, with 
great weakness on the part of the patient, a deeper 
probing discovered that the musket ball itself had 
lodged in the thigh, causing often excruciating pain 
and at times complete disablement, as we shall see 
in the campaign of 1864. It is one of the penalties 
to which a man of powerful frame, accustomed to 
active exercise, is especially bable, that if from any 
cause he is long disabled and kept in confinement 
he acquires flesh with great rapidity, sometimes with 
important consequences to his physique and habits 
of life. After his Gettysburg wound' Hancock un- 
derwent a marked change physiologically, gaining 
weight rapidly during his enforced idleness and 



AFTER GETTYSBURG. 



149 



suffering a permanent loss of some portion of his 
former activity and elasticity. To the observer, 
however, the change in no degree diminished the im- 
pressiveness of his carriage and bearing. He was, 
if anything, statelier, with an appearance of greater 
power and more composure. 

During Hancock's long absence the Second 
Corps saw much of severe and trying service, 
though no great battle was in that period fought by 
the Army of the Potomac. General Gibbon, next in 
rank, having been seriously wounded, Brigadier- 
General William Hays was provisionally assigned 
to the command. Under General Hays, a sensible, 
quiet, firm officer, the corps took part in the pur- 
suit of Lee, and afterward moved to the left bank 
of the Rappahannock, at Morrisville. On the 12th 
of August, Major-General Gouverneur K. Warren, 
who had been promoted in recognition of his dis- 
tinguished services at Gettysburg and who in an 
especial degree possessed Meade's confidence, was 
assigned as temporary commander. Under Warren 
the corps took part in the forward movement 
across the Rappahannock about the middle of Sep- 
tember; and between the loth and the 15th of 
October bore a conspicuous and glorious part in 
the somewhat bewildering operations of those days. 
On the 14th it was twice engaged with the enemy 
while acting as rear guard during the retreat on 
Centreville — in the morning at Auburn and in the 



I-O GENERAL HANCOCK. 

afternoon at Bristoe Station. At the latter point, 
where the Orange and Alexandria Railroad crosses 
Broad Run, the corps, through the error of General 
Sykes, found itself entirely cut off from the rest of 
the army, and was obliged to confront both the 
pursuing columns of Lee without the possibility of 
support from any quarter until night fell. In this 
perilous position the superb soldiership of Warren 
not only rescued the troops from impending de- 
struction, but won a brilliant victory. The Second 
Corps marched that night to join its comrades on 
the heights of Centreville, carrying with it five 
captured cannon, two Confederate flags, and five 
hundred prisoners, the trophies of as pretty a fight 
as the whole war witnessed. 

In the last days of November the corps took a 
creditable part in the Mine Run expedition, during 
which Meade almost succeeded in interposing his 
army between Hill and Ewell and getting a fight 
out of the latter on his own terms. On the 29th of 
December, 1863, Hancock returned to the army and 
resumed command, Warren being absent on leave. 
This, however, was but a brief episode. On the 8th 
of January, 1864, Hancock again relinquished the 
command to Warren and went back to the North, to 
continue the efforts in which he had been engaged 
to fill up his depleted regiments. On the 6th of 
February the corps took part in a demonstration on 
Morton's ford, which was intended to favor a move- 



AFTER GETTYSBURG. 



151 



ment upon Richmond by General Butler from the 
South. The division of General Alexander Hays 
was thrown across the river and some sharp fighting 
ensued ; but when night fell the troop's were with- 
drawn and went again into camp. 

It was early in March, 1864, that Hancock de- 
finitively relieved General Warren. The Army of 
the Potomac was now in the body looking across 
the Rapidan toward Richmond, and in the spirit 
contemplating the opening of the great campaign 
which all believed, even after the disappointments 
of 1862 and 1863, was to close the rebellion. Again 
and again the Confederate armies had escaped 
seemingly inevitable destruction — in part by their 
own extraordinary gallantry and endurance ; in 
part by good luck and the accidents of war; in 
part by manifest blunders of management or the 
hopeless incompetency of Union commanders. The 
almost incessant battling of two years had told for 
the national cause in training soldiers and officers 
for this great final effort; it had told against the 
Confederate cause through losses both of men and 
of material which could not be replaced. Moreover, 
the renowned chieftain who in July had opened the 
Mississippi to the Gulf, and in November had driven 
Bragg's army from the heights of Chattanooga, had 
come from the West to give a last crushing blow 
to the army of Northern Virginia. 

On the 26th of February, 1864, Congress passed 



152 GENERAL HANXOCK. 

a bill to create the grade of lieutenant general. 
The bill became law on March ist, and on the same 
day Grant was nominated to that high office. The 
nomination was confirmed on the 2d. On the 8th 
General Grant arrived in Washington. After a brief 
visit to Brandy Station he returned to the West to 
make his final arrangements for the campaign 
against Atlanta. On the 26th his headquarters 
were established at Culpepper. The Army of the 
Potomac was largely reconstructed. The five corps 
of which it was composed (the Eleventh and 
Twelfth having gone West, after Gettysburg, to re- 
enforce the army of Rosecrans) were consolidated 
into three. Two of these gallant, much-enduring 
organizations had therefore to lose their name and 
place. It was a hard fate for the officers and sol- 
diers who had borne their corps colors and badges 
with so much distinction through so many severe 
actions. Whether it was actually necessary may, as 
we now look back upon this episode, be gravely 
questioned. But it was done for the public good, 
and was believed to be for the efficiency of the 
army. The main object was not to increase the 
mass, and with this the zeal and self-confidence, of 
the three corps remaining. It was primarily a ques- 
tion of the higher officers. The experiences of 1863 
had painfully shown how great a step it is from the 
charge of a division to that of a corps. The Mine 
Run campaign had been brought to utter failure by 



AFTER GETTYSBURG. 153 

the incapacity of one out of the five commanders ; 
and it was generally felt that two others of the 
group were beyond their depth, though intelligent 
and accomplished officers who were incapable of 
making gross mistakes or palpably falling short of 
their high office. General Meade believed that he 
could find three first-class commanders for the army 
assembled around Brandy Station ; he did not feel 
sure of a fourth, much less of a fifth. 

The two corps which were selected for the sacrifice 
were the First and the Third. The First Corps was 
to go entire to the Fifth, which was in the approach- 
ing campaign to be commanded by General Warren. 
The Third Corps was to be divided: its third di- 
vision was to go to the Sixth Corps under Sedg- 
wick ; its first and second divisions, the old di- 
visions of Kearney and Hooker, were to be assigned, 
still as distinct divisions, to the Second Corps. Of 
the grief and anger of the officers and men of the 
Third Corps at this dismemberment of the noble 
body of troops with which they had been so long 
connected, of which they had justly been so proud, 
and which to them had become a sacred thing, it is 
not fitting that we should speak here. 

The assignment of these two divisions of itself 
wrought a great change in the life of the Second 
Corps. But greater changes were to come with be- 
wildering rapidity. During the two years which 
had elapsed since its organization by President 



jr^ GENERAL HANCOCK. 

Lincoln in March, 1862, the corps — notwithstanding 
the trying demands made upon it, each battle finding 
the wounds of the last still unhealed ; notwithstand- 
ing the enormous sum of its losses in men and even 
more in officers — had maintained an unbroken con- 
tinuity of life and a high degree of harmony be- 
tween its constituent parts. Twelve thousand six 
hundred men had been killed, wounded, or captured 
in action during 1862 ; and out of its depleted 
ranks seven thousand two hundred had been lost 
in the battles of 1863. Yet through all this the 
corps had retained its integrity and its character- 
istic quality. New regiments had from time to 
time been sent to recruit its ranks; four entire 
brigades had joined it ; yet there was always 
enough remaining of the old body and the old spirit 
to take up, assimilate, and vitalize the new ma- 
terial. Moreover, between the rapid, exhaustmg 
marches and the oft-recurring desperate battles had 
been, at least, distinct, if brief, intervals of rest and 
discipline, in winter and in summer camps, when 
the shattered regiments regained form and tone, 
when the new men learned the ways of the old and 
caught the spirit of the organization they had 
entered. The time had now come for a fierce and 
o'ermastering change in the constituents, and, by a 
necessary consequence, in some degree also in the 
character of the Second Corps : 

The following was the composition of the com- 



AFTER GETTYSBURG. 155 

mand on the 31st of March, 1S64, after the acces- 
sion of the troops from the Third Corps : 

Artillery Brigade. — Colonel John C. Tidball. 

First Division. — Brigadier-General Francis C. 
Barlow. First Brigade: Colonel Nelson A. Miles. 
Second Brigade : Colonel Thomas A. Smyth, Third 
Brigade : Colonel Paul Frank. Fourth Brigade : 
Colonel John R. Brooke. 

Second Division. — Brigadier-General John Gibbon. 
First Brigade : Brigadier-General Alexander S. Webb. 
Second Brigade: Brigadier-General Joshua T. Owen. 
Third Brigade: Colonel S. Sprigg Carroll. 

Third Division. — Major-General David B. Bir- 
ney. First Brigade: Brigadier-General J. H. Hobart 
Ward. Second Brigade : Brigadier-General Alexan- 
der Hays. 

Fourth Division. — Brigadier -General Joseph B. 
Carr. First Brigade: Brigadier-General Gershom 
Mott. Second Brigade : Colonel William R. Brewster. 

The aggregate force of the enlarged command 
was 43,055, distributed as follows: 

Corps staff, 18; Artillery, 663; First Division, 
12,250; Second Division, 11,367; Third Division, 
10,174; Fourth Division, 8,563. 

The same aggregate was further distributed as 
follows : 

Present for duty, equipped, 23,877; on extra or 
daily duty, 4,422 ; sick, 1,278 ; in arrest or confine- 
ment, 152; absent, 13,306. It does not need to be 



1^6 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

said that the absent were largely those who had 
been wounded in half a score of battles or skir- 
mishes, or had broken down under exertions, priva- 
tions, and exposures attendant upon forced marches, 
and bivouacs amid storm and frost. 

On the 22d of April, 1864, all the troops consti- 
tuting the enlarged corps were for the first time 
brought together that they might be reviewed by 
the new lieutenant general. The occasion was one 
never to be forgotten by any who participated in 
it. The weather had been gloomy and disagree- 
able, but this day broke clear and bright. The 
ground was admirably adapted to show, from every 
part of it, the whole corps, alike when in position 
and when in motion. General Grant came accom- 
panied by a remarkable group of officers, compris- 
ing Generals Meade, Humphreys, Warren, Hunt, 
Williams, and a score of others whose names are a 
part of the history of the war. Nearly twenty-five 
thousand men were formed for parade, the four 
divisions of infantry in four lines parallel to each 
other and all directly opposite the stand of the 
reviewing officer. The artillery was formed on the 
right flank of and perpendicular to the infantry. 

In a high degree it was a veteran corps. Of 
the eighty regiments there mustered, nearly fifty 
had served on the Peninsula — at Yorktown, at 
Williamsburg, at Fair Oaks, at Glendale, and at 
Malvern Hills; and nearly twenty more had fought 



AFTER GETTYSBURG. 



157 



at Fredericksburg. What had those gallant com- 
panies not done, what had they not endured, under 
four successive commanders of the Potomac Army 
— McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, and Meade? What 
form of service had they not seen, what shape of 
danger could be strange to them, what exigency 
could arise to find them unprepared ? What artifice 
could deceive, what celerity of movement surprise, 
what audacity of attack daunt them ? Yet, tramed 
and accomplished soldiers as they were, it was 
no array of grizzled veterans on which the lieu- 
tenant general looked as he rode down the lines 
that day. One half had not reached their twenty- 
fifth birthday — thousands were never to see it. 



CHAPTER X. 

THE WILDERNESS. FIRST DAY. 

It was on the night of the 3d of May that the 
Second Corps left its winter camps. The lieutenant 
general's plan was to cross the Rapidan by its lower 
fords, and then, turning to the right, find and strike 
the enemy. No manoeuvring for advantage of 
ground was to be undertaken ; no effort made to 
draw Lee into compromising positions. The prime 
object was a battle, a battle on the first day pos- 
sible — a battle on whatever field. In order to this, 
Warren's Fifth Corps was, in the early morning of 
the 4th, to cross at Germanna Ford and push out to 
Old Wilderness Tavern. Sedgwick, with the Sixth 
Corps, was to follow and encamp near the river, 
facing to the right. Hancock's corps, which had 
already crossed at Ely's Ford farther down, was to 
move around the rear of Warren and come up on 
the left at Chancellorsville. This programme was 
easily carried out ; the enemy offered no opposition ; 
the distances to be covered were not great ; all the 
troops came into their positions early on the 4th. 
The Second Corps, which had by far the heaviest 



THE WILDERNESS.— FIRST DAY. 



159 



march, reached Chaiicellorsville with its head of 
column between nine and ten o'clock, and was all 
closed up at that point by one. The Fifth Corps 
was in position by two. Grant's army was, there- 
fore, early on the 4th of May, south of the Rapidan, 
extending from Germanna Ford, through Old Wil- 
derness Tavern, to Chancellorsville, fronting west. 
Meanwhile Burnside was advancing along the rail- 
road to re-enforce the Army of the Potomac from 
which the Ninth Corps had long been separated. 
These troops would in their advance serve to pro- 
tect Grant's communications with Washington against 
any counter movement by Lee. 

Why was it, we may ask, that the Army of the 
Potomac had been halted so early in the day ? The 
whole of the terrible fighting of the two succeeding 
days was to be done within territory over which the 
troops might have been carried during the remain- 
ing hours of the 4th. General Humphreys, the chief 
of staff, says : " The troops might have easily con- 
tinued their march five miles farther — the Second 
Corps to Todd's Tavern, the head of the Fifth Corps 
to Parker's Store, the head of the Sixth Corps to 
Wilderness Tavern." It may be said : " If the army 
was to fight the enemy, what did it matter whether 
it fought them five miles farther to the west or to 
the east ? " I answer — it made a vast difference. 
The immediate region of the Wilderness was known 
to our army and its leaders as one of the most 



l6o GENERAL HANCOCK. 

difficult and perplexing in which soldiers were ever 
called to operate — a region through portions of 
which troops could not be forced without completely 
breaking up their formation, over all of which there 
were few opportunities for the use of artillery. It 
was a region in which the power of discipline almost 
disappeared, in which the personal influence of com- 
manders was at a minimum, in which tactics were 
literally impossible. The region beyond was bad 
enough, like most of Virginia ; this, viewed as a 
battle-ground, was simply infernal. 

Nor was it in any sense true that the difficul- 
ties and perplexities would be equally felt by both 
armies. In the first place, Lee was on the defensive; 
and the woods and swamps of the region were to him 
better than field works in retarding the movements 
of his adversary. In the second place, the Confed- 
erate army was made up of men who in a high de- 
gree possessed woodcraft — the faculty, both inher- 
ited and cultivated, of making one's way rapidly and 
confidently through jungles and thickets, keeping 
the direction of the sun, finding fords in swamps 
and streams. In the third place, General Lee had 
at hand those who knew that district well as their 
home ; at any moment he might call to his bridle 
rein the very man who owned the land which he was 
traversing, who could tell not only how every road 
ran, but whither every woodpath led, at what points 
the creek was fordable, where lay the highest ground 



THE WILDERNESS.— FIRST DAY. i6i 

for miles around. In the fourth place, the artillery 
of the Army of the Potomac was largely superior, 
both in number of pieces and in effectiveness of fire, 
to that of the Southern army, however gallantly 
served ; yet in the Wilderness most of the guns of 
the Potomac army might as well have been spiked. 
Of Hancock's vast battery, only six guns fired so 
much as a shot in the two days' action. In the fifth 
place, not only were the Northern regiments, as a 
rule, better drilled, but they were, by the genius of 
their people, far more mechanical in their actions ; 
they depended, in a higher degree than did their 
antagonists, upon the nature of the ground. The 
Southerner was, both by instinct and training, more 
of an out-of-doors animal, more independent, self- 
governing, self-reliant. He would come up on the 
line in good time and ready for fight, but it was by 
his own way. He did not need "the touch of the 
elbow," the dressing by-the-right, or the file-closer 
behind him. In the sixth place, the Northern army 
had been accustomed to depend very much more 
upon the personal attention and devotion of its high 
officers than had the Southern army. Take Gettys- 
burg for an example. On the 3d of July (iibbon, 
commanding the Second Corps, was wounded on the 
very front line, falling among the soldiers of the 
Nineteenth Maine ; Hancock, commanding the left 
center, fell even a little in advance of the line. On 
the opposite side Pickett did not cross the Emmitts- 



1 52 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

burg road while his troops were making their great 
charge; Longstreet never left Seminary Ridge. 

I have said the troops could have made the fur- 
ther march necessary to carry them out of these 
jungles into a region rough and tangled enough, yet 
paradisiacal in comparison with the Wilderness. Of 
this there is no question. The one objection was the 
possibility of Lee's interposing between our right 
and the river. This reason prevailed ; yet for one 
I do not believe it was sufficient. With our distinct 
superiority in infantry, in cavalry, in artillery, it 
ought to have been seen to be possible to make our 
right perfectly secure while advancing our columns 
five or six miles to the west.* With us Burnside 
was coming up behind ; while it was known that 
Longstreet with his corps was at an even greater 
distance in the rear of his own arm3^ 

But it was not so ordered. It was destined that 
the Battle of the Wilderness should be fought. The 
Second Corps, as recited, halted at Chancellorsville, 

* " Had he [Grant] really wished to fight a battle on the 5th, the 
Second Corps, after crossing at Ely's Ford on the 4th, should have 
moved out the Orange plank road to New Hope Church ; the 
Fifth Corps out the pike to Robertson's Tavern ; the Sixth 
Corps to Old Wilderness Tavern, and, on the morning of the 
5 th, to position between the Second and the Fifth Corps ; Wil- 
son's cavalry out the Orange plank road in advance of the Sec- 
ond Corps, and moving to the left at New Hope Church. That 
would have brought on a battle in more open and better ground 
for the Army of the Potomac than that of the Wilderness." — 
Humphreys s Virginia Campaign of 1864- 6j, p. j6. 



THE WILDERNESS.— FIRST DAY. 163 

and spent the afternoon and the night of the 4th 
upon the very battlefield where Hancock's and 
French's divisions had fought just one year before. 
The ground about the Chancellor House was still 
strewn with the wreckage of battle; and here and 
there the bones of half-buried men were to be seen 
protruding from their shallow graves. In the early 
morning Hancock set out, under orders to move, by 
way of Catherine Furnaces and Todd's Tavern, to 
Shady Grove Church, on the Catharpin road ; thence 
to extend his right toward the Fifth Corps at Par- 
ker's Store. The Fifth Corps was in turn to extend 
its right toward the Sixth at Old Wilderness Tavern. 
But this movement was never to be executed. The 
Fifth Corps in the center had moved but a little way 
toward Parker's when Ewell was discovered advanc- 
ing in force. At half-past seven a dispatch was 
sent to Hancock informing him of this and direct- 
ing him to halt at Todd's Tavern. When this mes- 
sage reached Hancock, at about nine o'clock, his 
head of column was a mile and a half beyond that 
point. About two hours later he received orders 
to move to his right, by the Brock road, to its 
junction with the Orange plank road. Hancock 
accordingly countermarched to Todd's Tavern, and 
then took the route northward toward the main 
body of the army. Birney's division — which, having 
formed the rear in the morning, took the lead in the 
retrograde movement — arrived at the intersection 



l6_^ GENERAL HANCOCK. 

of the Brock and Plank roads about two o'clock. 
Here it found Getty's division of the Sixth Corps 
holding the plank road against a movement of Hill's 
corps which had been intended to interpose a Con- 
federate force between Grant's two wings. Getty 
had not as yet become seriously engaged ; but War- 
ren's Fifth Corps, farther to the north, had been 
fighting a severe battle with Ewell, in which the 
Union troops were rather roughly handled. 

Even while Birney's division was coming up, the 
bullets of the enemy's skirmishers were flying across 
the Brock road, by which we were moving. Birney 
at once placed his division in two lines of battle, 
the formation being greatly retarded by the narrow- 
ness of the road and the density of the woods on 
either side. Mott's division was the next to arrive, 
and took position, also in two lines, on Birney's left. 
General Hancock found Getty anxious to make an 
early attack in obedience to repeated instructions 
from Meade, who addressed similar urgent repre- 
sentations to Hancock himself as soon as he arrived 
upon the ground. The latter was strongly desirous 
of getting his whole corps up and in hand ; and 
would, if left to himself, have awaited the arrival 
of Gibbon and Barlow. But at a quarter past four 
Getty moved forward. Scarcely had his troops 
advanced four hundred yards through the thickets 
when Hill was encountered, and so fierce at once be- 
came the fighting that Hancock had no resource but 



THE WILDERNESS.— FIRST DAY. 165 

to throw Birney forward with his own and Mott's di- 
vision. Birney went in on both Getty's right and 
left, a section of Ricketts's Pennsylvania battery 
moving up the road abreast of the troops. Dow's 
Sixth Maine Battery was put into position at the 
junction of the two roads to fire over the heads of 
our men. Meanwhile Gibbon's and Barlow's divi- 
sions were forming in the road farther to the left, 
Frank's brigade of the latter having been halted to 
hold the junction of the Brock road and a road lead- 
ing out to the Catharpin road. All of the Second 
Corps artillery, except the six guns accounted for, 
was established on some high, cleared ground which 
ran backward from the extreme left of our line, 
forming a marked exception to the general topo- 
graphical character of the Wilderness. 

No sooner had Getty, Birney, and Mott become 
fairly engaged in front of the Brock road than the 
disadvantages resulting from a lack of more com- 
plete preparation became painfully evident. It was 
scarcely possible to bring up the remaining troops 
through the dense woods with sufficient rapidity to 
meet the demands from the leading divisions for re- 
enforcements. One of the fiercest battles of history 
had begun, and both armies were entering upon the 
first action of the opening campaign with ferocious 
resolution. Owen's brigade, from Gibbon, was 
thrown in upon either side of the plank road to 
support Getty. Then Smyth's and Brooke's brigades, 



l66 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

from Barlow, went in from our extreme left, and with 
desperate resolution drove, back Hill's right a con- 
siderable distance. Finally, Carroll's brigade, from 
Gibbon, was pushed up the plank road, where our 
troops had received a savage countercharge and 
had for the moment been forced back, leaving be- 
hind them Ricketts's two guns. Before the Confed- 
erates could secure the coveted trophies, detach- 
ments from the Fourteenth Indiana and Eighth Ohio 
succeeded in retaking the guns and hauling them 
by hand down the road. And so, amid those dense 
woods, where foemen could not see each other, 
where colonels could not see the whole of their regi- 
ments, where captains often could not see the left 
of their companies, the two armies thus suddenly 
brought into collision wrestled* in desperate battle 
until night came to make the gloom complete. 
Thousands on either side had fallen. Of those 
who survived, many had not once beheld an enemy, 
yet the tangled forest had been alive with flying 
missiles ; the whistling of the bullets through the 
air had been incessant ; the very trees seemed peo- 
pled by spirits that shrieked and groaned through 
those hours of mortal combat. 

* "A wrestle as blind as midnight ; a gloom that made ma- 
ncEuvres impracticable ; a jungle where regiments stumbled on 
each other and on the enemy by turns, firing sometimes into their 
own ranks, and guided often only by the cracking of the bushes 
or the cheers and cries ihat rose from the depths around." — 
Badeau, vol. ii, p. iij. 



THE WILDERNESS.— FIRST DAY. 167 

The fighting ceased at dark. Neither side had 
secured any decisive advantage. Hill had been 
driven some distance backward, and his two divi- 
sions had been considerably broken and disordered. 
General Humphreys, a very cautious commentator, 
expresses the opinion that had there been but an 
hour more of daylight Hill would have been driven 
wholly from the field ; but Hancock's late arrival, 
owing to his long detour through Todd's Tavern, 
moving on a single, narrow road, prevented a com- 
plete success. Grant certainly had not expected to 
be attacked at that time and place, or he would 
not have sent Hancock away toward Shady Grove 
Church. Calling the Second Corps back from its 
turning movement, he had sought with one tremen- 
dous effort to lift and throw his antagonist. But he 
had underrated the valor and endurance of the Army 
of Northern Virginia, not to be daunted and not to 
be surprised ; commanded by resolute, audacious, un- 
tiring leaders ; defending a country with which it 
had become familiar by long occupation, and which 
was of a kind with that in which its soldiers had 
been reared. Upon the Union right the Fifth and 
Sixth Corps had met with varymg fortunes in their 
contest with Ewell, but with no serious reverses. 



CHAPTER XI. 

THE WILDERNESS.— SECOND DAY. 

When night fell on the 5th of May the woods 
were full of the wounded, yet the utmost exertions 
of the medical staff and the ambulance corps could 
not avail to bring off the sufferers. The under- 
growth was so dense that it was almost impossible 
to find the victims of the afternoon's battle, and 
the hostile lines were so close that any movement 
quickly brought down a heavy fire. During the 
night Grant, Meade, and Himiphreys were earnestly 
engaged in preparing for the struggle of the coming 
day. On either side fresh troops were coming up: 
Longstreet's powerful corps, with Anderson's divi- 
sion of Hill's corps, from Orange Court House ; Burn- 
side's Ninth Corps from the line of the Rappahan- 
nock. The relative value of these re-enforcements 
was, however, far from equal, the preponderance 
being vastly on the Confederate side in point both 
of numbers and of discipline. The general plan of 
battle for the 6th was, in brief, as follows: Hancock, 
with his own four divisions, Getty's division of the 
Sixth Corps, and Wadsworth's division of the Fifth, 



THE WILDERNESS.— SECOND DAY. 169 

was to attack Hill at five o'clock in the morning, 
and if possible destroy or drive him off the field be- 
fore the Confederate re-enforcements should arrive. 
On the right the remaining divisions of the Fifth 
and Sixth Corps, under the personal observation of 
Grant and Meade, were to occupy Ewell so closely 
as to prevent his sending re-enforcements to Hill. 
As soon as Burnside should arrive from the bridge 
over the Rapidan, as he was expected to do at an 
early hour, his corps was to be directed toward the 
Confederate center. Assuming Hill's corps to have 
been at that time disrupted by the tremendous 
assault preparing against it, Burnside was relied 
upon to pierce Lee's line north of the plank road, 
whereupon the demonstrations of the Fifth and 
Sixth Corps were to be converted into a furious 
attack upon Ewell, by which it was hoped to close 
the day with a complete victory for the Union arms. 
It will be seen that Hancock's part in the com- 
ing battle was fully equal to what had been inti- 
mated by the responsibilities he had borne and the 
success he had achieved at Gettysburg. He was to 
command half of the army, and the active opera- 
tions of the day were all to be made dependent 
upon his resolution and energy. The only miscal- 
culation of the commander in chief was in regard 
to the nature of the country, the tenacity of the 
enemy and their capability for initiative, and the 
time of the arrival of the Confederate re-enforce- 



I JO GENERAL HAxVCOCK. 

ments. Exactly at five o'clock Hancock advanced 
to the attack ; but already, a few minutes before, 
Ewell had opened on Sedgwick, to relieve the an- 
ticipated pressure upon Hill and to gain time for 
Longstreet to get up. The fire thus kindled swept 
fast down the line from the right across the front 
of Warren. Wadsworth advanced gallantly to his 
appointed work of striking Hill's flank, and the 
divisions of Birney, Mott, and Getty, with Carroll's 
and Owen's brigades from Gibbon's, all under the 
general command of Birney, flung themselves upon 
the Confederate intrenchments which crossed the 
plank road. The attack and the defense were alike 
of the most desperate nature. The night had given 
time for commanders to rectify their lines ; the Con- 
federates were near, and the contest became at once 
close and savage. But the impetus of that well-pre- 
pared assault could not be resisted. Hill's troops 
gave way ; Hancock's men leaped, first, a log in- 
trenchment, and then, three or four hundred yards 
farther back, a line of rifle pits. In less than an 
hour the Confederate right was routed and in flight, 
colors and prisoners were taken, and for the moment 
all presaged a complete victory for the Union arms. 
The enemy had been driven a mile through the for- 
est, almost to their wagon trains. 

But three causes now combined to relieve the 
pressure upon the Confederate right and to give 
the Army of Northern Virginia that one chance of 



THE WILDERNESS.— SECOND DAY, 



171 



which it so well knew how to take advantage. The 
Union columns had become terribly mixed and dis- 
ordered in their forward movement, under the ex- 
citement and bewilderment of battle, through woods 
so dense that no body of troops could possibly pre- 
serve their alignment. In some cases they were 
heaped up in unnecessary strength; elsewhere 
great gaps existed unknown to the staff ; men, and 
even officers, had lost their regiments in the jungle; 
thousands had fallen ; the men in front were largely 
out of ammunition, which it was impossible to bring 
up in such a place. The second cause now entering 
to give the Confederate arms relief was the arrival 
of Kershaw's division. These troops, undismayed by 
the signs of wreck which met their view on every 
side, moved gallantly into action against Hancock's 
left, which was farthest advanced, and, throwing 
themselves with the utmost determination upon that 
part of our line, forced it back until it came abreast 
of the center. The third, and even more important 
cause which operated to check the course of Han- 
cock's victory, and finally to turn it into defeat, 
was a misunderstanding between himself and Gen- 
eral Gibbon as to the disposition to be made of the 
forces under the command of the latter officer. That 
misunderstanding has never been explained, but the 
bearing of the results will now be indicated. 

Even while Hancock was forming his columns 
for attack, he had been embarrassed by intelligence 



1/2 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



from army headquarters that the advance of Long- 
street's corps, instead of coming up in rear of Hill, 
was bearing off southward, as if to pass around his 
left flank and penetrate into his rear ; and he had 
been especially warned that in his arrangements for 
the day he must provide fully for all the exigen- 
cies which might arise in that quarter. He accord- 
ingly placed Gibbon in charge of the left, giving him 
all the artillery massed there and the splendid in- 
fantry division of Barlow. Gibbon's own troops had 
been sent, or were to be sent, out the plank road 
to join in the great attack. General Gibbon, than 
whom no man better knew the use of artillery, dis- 
posed a great battery of forty pieces upon the com- 
paratively high and clear ground running backward 
to our rear, which we spoke of in connection with the 
first day's fight, and placed his infantry in support. 

Such was the situation when Birney, after taking 
time to rectify his lines at the front, was preparing 
to renew his attacks upon the corps of Hill and the 
division of Kershaw. Birney's weak point was his 
left. Too many troops had been sent up the plank 
road, Hancock trusting to their being properly dis- 
tributed by the staff along the line, on their arrival 
at the front. This I am disposed to regard as Han- 
cock's great tactical mistake during the battle of the 
Wilderness. He ought to have apprehended the 
danger that — owing to the nature of the country, the 
difficulty of moving troops through the woods, and 



THE WILDEUXESS.— SECOND DAY. 



W5 



the impossibilty of seeing anything— an undue pro- 
portion of the re-enforcements thus arriving would 
remain at or near the road, instead of being marched 
through the jungles a sufficient distance to the left 
properly to extend and strengthen the line. Of 
course, in open country the latter would, without 
fail, have been done; but under the circumstances it 
would have been better had the re-enforcements been 
taken well down the Brock road toward the left, and 
then sent forward through the woods, toward the 
firing, till they came up with the general line. 

Hancock, however, though he had no concep- 
tion, on account of the intervening woods, of the ex- 
tent to which his troops had been heaped up near 
the plank road, was yet not unapprehensive regard- 
ing the exposure of Birney's left flank to the attack 
of Confederate re-enforcements arriving on the field; 
and at a certain hour gave, or thought he gave, an 
order to send Barlow's division forward, to come up 
on Birney's left. This statement is contained in 
Hancock's official report and is corroborated by the 
notes of his staff officers. General Gibbon, on his 
part, positively denies having received such a defini- 
tive order, though he says the forwarding of Bar- 
low's division had been spoken of between Hancock 
and himself as a thing to be done. It is not improb- 
able that Hancock may have given what he con- 
sidered an order to that effect ; may have acquiesced 
in a temporary postponement of the movement, 



1/4 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



owing to fresh rumors of Longstreet's advance from 
Todd's Tavern; and may then have failed distinctly 
to notify Gibbon that he expected it at once to be 
made. The history of war abounds in such mis- 
understandings. No one who knew Gibbon can pos- 
sibly believe that this accomplished officer conscious- 
ly failed to do anything that was required of him. 

However it came about, the evil consequences of 
the weakness of Birney's left were soon made mani- 
fest. The battle was now about to be resumed on 
our side after the pause needed to rectify the forma- 
tions, to reorganize as well as could be done in the 
dense woods the shattered troops, and to replace 
those which had suffered most by brigades from the 
second line. Wadsworth's division formed Birney's 
right; still farther to the right, as announced by a 
staff officer from General Meade, Burnside, with two 
divisions, was advancing into the space between 
Hancock and Warren, meeting little resistance and 
heading directly for Parker's Store. This heavy 
concentration of forces seemed to promise a speedy 
and complete triumph ; but the promise was a most 
fallacious one. Burnside's reported attack proved 
to be unreal; the interval between Birney and Bar- 
low was still unfilled; powerful re-enforcements 
were at once stiffening Hill's front and aiming at 
the dangerous gap in the Union line. Though it 
was true that Hancock had with him one half of 
Grant's army, it was also true that two-thirds of 



THE WILDERNESS.— SECOND DAY. 



175 



Lee's army were now being directed against him ; 
and of these, two-thirds were fresh troops. Field's 
division of Longstreet's corps had followed close 
on Kershaw's, coming upon the field at the double 
quick, and was in turn followed by Anderson's divi- 
sion of Hill's corps. In this critical moment intel- 
ligence was received that Cutler's brigade, upon the 
left of Warren, had been driven from its position 
in disorder, Burnside as yet being nowhere to be 
seen; and Birney was obliged to detach two brig- 
ades to reoccupy the ground. 

In spite of the formidable re-enforcements which 
the Confederate right had received, our troops made 
heroic efforts to follow up the successes of the 
earlier morning. Birney, Wadsworth, and Mott de- 
livered a furious attack in which men fell by thou- 
sands and Lee's fresh divisions were shaken like 
trees in a gale. But the Confederate line would no 
longer yield. In this moment of anxiety every ear 
was turned to catch the roar of Burnside's attack. 
Two hours had passed since Hancock had been told 
that this was then taking place; but as yet not a 
sound from that direction told that Burnside had 
got to work.* It was to be several hours, still, before 



* As late as 11.45 Rawlings, Grant's chief of staff, wrote to 
Burnside: "Push in and drive the enemy from Hancock's front 
and get on the plank road. Hancock has expected you for the 
last three hours, and has been making his attack and dispositions 
with a view to your assistance." 



IjQ GENERAL HANCOCK. 

this promised assistance to our hard-pressed troops 
was to be given — assistance it could scarcely be 
called, for when Burnside made his attack Hancock 
had been driven back to the Brock road. 

The crisis of the battle was now fast approach- 
ing. The enemy, having discovered the gap in our 
line where Barlow's division should have been, drew 
down four brigades, to find their way around Bir- 
ney's left. These troops, moving by their right, 
reached the bed of the unfinished Fredericksburg 
railroad, and there formed, facing north, for a de- 
cisive charge. At eleven o'clock they moved for- 
ward with the impetuosity characteristic of Con- 
federate flank attacks. Frank's brigade, the only 
one of Barlow's division that had gone forward, was 
struck on end, broken into fragments, and hurled 
back in dire disorder. The ne.xt troops encoun- 
tered comprised McAllister's brigade of Mott's 
division; and these too, although they had par- 
tially changed front upon the alarm given by the 
attack on Frank, were quickly overlapped, crushed, 
and driven back. Advised now by the firing and 
shouting of the turning column of the success of 
the movement against our flank, the divisions of 
Kershaw, Field, and Anderson threw themselves 
impetuously upon the front of the Union forces, 
and, after a desperate struggle, our men began to 
give way. Perceiving the hopelessness of the at- 
tempt to repair the disaster on his left, Hancock 



THE WILDERNESS.— SECOND DAY, 



177 



made the utmost exertions to hold the advanced 
position which we occupied on the north of the 
plank road, " refusing " the other wing. Had it 
been on open ground and in plain view, his in- 
spiring presence and great tactical skill might have 
availed ; but in the tangled forest, with the troops 
in the condition in which hours of hard fighting had 
left them, there was not time. On the left, Mott's 
division was fast crumbling away under the fire 
upon their flank ; on the right, the heroic Wads- 
worth had been killed at the head of his division, 
and his regiments were staggering under the terrific 
blows of the encouraged and exultant enemy ; in 
the center, Birney's division and the brigades of 
Carroll, Owen, and Webb, worn with fighting and 
depleted by their enormous losses, were being 
slowly pressed back. Down the plank road a 
stream of broken men was pouring to the rear, giv- 
ing the onlooker the impression that everything had 
gone to pieces. In this situation Hancock, upon 
Birney's representations, reluctantly gave the order 
to withdraw the troops to the Brock road. 

It was now high noon, and the battle of the 
Wilderness, in all its essential features, had been 
fought and finished. A great assault had been 
made in the early morning with overwhelming suc- 
cess ; but the disorder of the troops and the power- 
ful re-enforcements arriving upon the field on the 
Confederate side had first stayed and then turned 



iprg GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the tide of battle. While the Confederates had 
brought three new divisions into action, Burnside 
had not borne a finger's weight upon the fight. 
At last the enterprise of four brigades led to the 
turning of Mott's left and caused the whole line 
to be thrown back violently and in disorder. But 
while the stream of fugitives would not have allowed 
any one standing at the junction of the Brock and 
plank roads at noon of the 6th of May to think 
anything else than that the whole left wing had col- 
lapsed, things were far from being so bad as that. 
Through the forest the steadier regiments were fall- 
ing back in as good order as the tangled thickets 
would permit, still facing the foe; and soon the in- 
trenchments along the verge of the Brock road, which 
the troops had left in the morning for their great 
charge, were filled with armed men — much broken up, 
it is true, alike by advance and by retreat, but not men 
whom it was safe to attack in position. Their losses 
had been enormous; but the enemy had captured 
few prisoners, and had themselves been so severely 
punished that they made little effort to follow our 
people up as they fell back to the breastworks. 

The next hour or two was, it must be confessed, 
an anxious time along the Brock road. Until regi- 
ments and brigades could be brought together ; until 
the men could get a chance to breathe, to eat some- 
thing, and look once more at the sun ; until ammu- 
nition could be brought up and served out, it was 



THE WILDERNESS.— SECOND DAY. 



1/9 



impossible to feel entire confidence. Fortunately, a 
respite was given. Just as Jackson, riding out in 
front of his troops after his great victory at Chan- 
cellorsville, May 2, 1863, to survey the ground over 
which he purposed to follow up his victory, fell 
under the fire of his own men, so Longstreet, on 
this 6th of May, 1864, while riding down the front 
of the brigades which had made the decisive move- 
ment, received a volley which severely wounded him 
and killed General Jenkins. 

The command of Longstreet's corps devolved 
upon R. H. Anderson ; General Lee, arriving on the 
ground, postponed the attack. It was not until 
4.15 p. M. that our skirmishers were driven in and 
the Confederates advanced in considerable force* 
against the intrenchments on the Brock road. The 
attack was a real one, but was not made with great 
spirit ; nor was the response from our side very 
hearty. The enemy advanced to within about a 
hundred yards, and then halted and began firing, 
to which our troops replied with noise enough, but 
keeping too much down behind the log intrench- 
ments, thus discharging their muskets into the air. 
The breastworks had taken fire at more than one 
point from the dried leaves and twigs in front, 
which had been kindled by the discharges of the 

*" Field's and Anderson's divisions, excepting Law's and 
Perry's brigades, with probably some part of Heth's division." — 
Humphreys' Campaign of i864-'65. 



l80 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

musketry. The heat at times became intense, and 
the smoke, blown backward over the intrench- 
ments, not only concealed the enemy from view, 
but blinded and stifled our men. Taking advantage 
of this unexpected incident, a Confederate brigade 
dashed forward and planted its colors upon the 
breastworks just to our left of the Brock road. 
For a moment all was confusion in that part of the 
line; some of Mott's men gave way and went to the 
rear, and with them one general officer.* But start- 
ling as was the exigency, it was as promptly and 
decisively met. Just as at Gettysburg Carroll 
forced his way through the retreating troops of the 
Eleventh Corps on the evening of July 2d, and, 
mounting Cemetery Hill, met and threw out the 
brigades of Hoke and Hays, which had effected a 
lodgment in Howard's line, so on this occasion the 
same intrepid officer, bringing his brigade at the 
double-quick across the plank road, faced to the 
right and drove out the adventurous enemy. 

This spirited action, which made Carroll a briga- 
dier-general, put an end to the battle on the left 
in the Wilderness. The Second Corps had lost 5,092, 
of whom 699 were reported killed, 3,877 wounded, 
and 516 missing, many of whom had fallen in the 
thickets, unobserved by their comrades. Among the 
killed was General Alexander Hays, who had com- 

* See page 244. 



TIIK WILDERNESS.— SECOND DAY, igi 

manded Hancock's small Third Division with so 
much distinction at Gettysburg, but had, in the gen- 
eral reorganization of 1864, been assigned to the 
command of one of the large new brigades. Gen- 
eral Hays was one of those astonishingly brave men 
whose courage and force in battle make them ob- 
served of all. At Gettysburg, at Bristoe, at Mine 
Run, at Morton's Ford, this devoted officer rode, 
with his staff and flag behind him, the mark of a 
thousand riflemen, the admiration of two armies, 
only to fall in a tangled wilderness, where scarcely 
a regiment could note his person and derive inspira- 
tion from his martial enthusiasm. Among the killed, 
also, were half a score of field officers. The heavi- 
est blows had fallen upon Birney's Third Division, 
which had lost 2,242 men. 

A comparison of the proportion of the killed and 
wounded who were commissioned officers with the 
like proportion at Gettysburg is highly instructive 
as to the nature of the fighting in the Wilderness. 
At Gettysburg three hundred and forty-nine officers 
had fallen ; in the Wilderness, out of a larger total, 
only two hundred and forty-six. At Gettysburg, of 
the killed* eight and a half per cent, and of the 
wounded eight per cent were officers. In the Wil- 
derness but five and a half per cent of the killed * 
and five per cent of the wounded were officers. This 

* These figures relate only to those killed outright. They do 
not inchidc those who subsequently died of their wounds. 



1 82 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

great disparity was due to the difference in the 
topographical features of the two battles. At Get- 
tysburg the fighting was almost wholly in the open. 
Here, not only had the sharpshooter a chance to do 
much mischief, but the higher responsibility of the 
officers led them in critical moments to expose them- 
selves with a freedom which largely increased their 
losses. In the Wilderness the greater part of those 
who fell were struck by men who could not even 
see them ; sounds directed the firing rather than 
sight. Under these conditions there was little spe- 
cial exposure of ofticers, and their share in the cas- 
ualties sank to something very near their numerical 
proportion. To aggravate the horrors of the later 
day of May 6th the woods had taken fire in many 
places, here slowly smoldering, there fiercely burn- 
ing. Hundreds of the wounded, who had fallen in 
the thickets and were not able to drag themselves 
within one or the other of the contending lines, 
were left to a lino-erino; and dreadful death. 



CHAPTER XII. 

SPOTTSYLVANIA. 

When the sun went down upon the smoking woods 
of the Wilderness on May 6th, the lirst battle of the 
campaign of 1864 was over. Lee had no disposition 
to renew the action, which he had brought on only 
to gain time for Longstreet's corps to come up 
from Gordonsville. Besides, he knew the Army of 
the Potomac well enough to be aware that his 
greatest advantage would probably be obtained 
in the first encounter. After Gettysburg the Con- 
federate commander was very unlikely to attack 
that army on a third day. Upon the Union side 
Grant was nowise daunted by the terrific fighting of 
the 5th and 6th; and in the early morning of the 
7th General Birney was directed to make a recon- 
noissance in force down the plank road to develop 
the position of the enemy. This was found to be so 
far retired from our front as to cause Grant to de- 
cide not to make a further effort in that direction, 
but to throw his whole army to the left, with a view 
to getting between Lee and Richmond. 

In this movement Warren, with the Fifth Corps 
13 



l84 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

and the cavalry, was to be in advance and seize 
Spottsylvania Court House on the early morning of 
the 8th ; Sedgwick, with the Sixth Corps, was to move 
around by the rear and come up on Warren's left, fol- 
lowed by the Ninth Corps ; Hancock's corps, having 
now become the right of the army, was to move 
down to Todd's Tavern, to be in readiness to resist 
any counter-movement by Lee into our right rear. 
Owing to the failure to seize certain bridges, by _ 
whose fault it is not necessary here to inquire, 
Warren did not succeed in reaching Spottsylvania 
before Lee ; and consequently the Union army, in- 
stead of receiving at that point the attacks of the 
Confederates, as Grant had contemplated, was des- 
tined to spend many days and suffer monstrous losses 
in vain attempts to capture the position. 

In execution of his own part of the plan, Han- 
cock occupied Todd's Tavern on May 8th and pre- 
pared himself to resist a movement which he did not 
doubt Lee would undertake against Meade's com- 
munications with the Rapidan. I do not remember 
ever to have known Hancock appear so anxious re- 
garding the discharge of any duty as he did this 
day. His preparations were unceasing and beto- 
kened the expectation of a severe struggle. Lee, 
however, had no such intention, his plans mvolving 
no counter-movement against Grant. And yet an 
action came very near being fought there that day. 
The reason was that the Confederate commander, 



SPOTTSYLVANIA. 



185 



on being advised that the Union army was in mo- 
tion, made up his mind that Grant's objective was 
Fredericlvsburg, and thereupon prepared to move 
his troops to Spottsylvania. As a part of this plan 
he ordered Early, who was in temporary command 
of Hill's corps, to move by way of Todd's Tavern, 
to relieve the pressure on the other roads. Early, 
on arriving in front of Todd's Tavern, found his 
road barred. Mahone, who was in advance, at once 
came into collision with Miles, who, with his own 
brigade of infantry, a battery, and a brigade of 
cavalry, had been sent forward on the Catharpin 
road nearly to Corbin's bridge. Miles twice faced 
about while retiring upon the main force and beat off 
the enemy who were following him. 

Expectation of battle was now at its height, as 
it was not doubted that the Confederates were at- 
tempting to " counter " upon Meade, answering his 
advance upon Spottsylvania by a movement into his 
right and rear. But though the Second Corps stood 
to arms through the rest of the afternoon and into 
the early evening, believing that another of its great 
days had come, the sun went down and darkness 
fell, and the battle of Todd's Tavern was never 
fought. Early, having reconnoitered Hancock's po- 
sition, interpreted his orders as meaning essentially 
that he was to get to Spottsylvania, and that going 
through Todd's Tavern was only a means to that 
end ; and so, finding his way barred in this direc- 



]86 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

tion, he wisely determined not to force the position, 
but bivouacked about a mile in front of Hancock, 
and in the morning moved off to Spottsylvania by 
the next most convenient route. 

By noon of the 9th, Early having disappeared, 
Mott's division and Burton's brigade of heavy artil- 
lery were left to hold the Catharpin road, and the 
remaining troops were dispatched toward Spottsyl- 
vania. On the way down it occurred to Generals 
Grant and Meade that, instead of the three divisions 
of the Second Corps, then available, being sent 
straight on, they should be thrown across the Po 
River to get upon the road by which Lee himself 
had retreated, and, moving down this, should try to 
come into the Confederate left and rear. This was 
accordingly done after six o'clock in the afternoon 
of the 9th. Hancock's command, crossing the Po 
by extemporized bridges, moved forward on the 
Shady Grove road until it reached Block House 
bridge, where this road crosses the Po, w-hich here 
takes a long turn southward. Owing to the distance 
and the density of the woods, Hancock was only 
able by dark to get his skirmishers up to the bridge. 
And here, in the space between Glady Run on the 
south and the Po on the north and east, the troops 
rested for the night. Engineering details were, how- 
ever, actively employed in making secure the com- 
munications with the north bank of the river. 

The morning of the loth of May found three divi- 



SPOTTSYLVANIA. 1 87 

sions of the Second Corps across the Po, threatening 
Lee's left flank and rear, Barlow's division being 
formed to face eastward on the Block House and 
Shady Grove Church road, just where that road 
crosses the river, to run into the Confederate rear. 
Active preparations were at once begun to press the 
movement vigorously, and Brooke's brigade had al- 
ready been thrown across the Po half way between 
the bridge and the mouth of Glady Run when in- 
telligence was received that General Meade pro- 
posed to assault the Confederates' Spottsylvania line 
upon Warren's front at five o'clock; and that Han- 
cock was to bring down two of his divisions, leaving 
one division only across the Po. It is clear that, if 
two thirds of Hancock's force were to be withdrawn 
from the position occupied during the preceding 
night, the remaining third should have gone with 
them, since a division left alone on the south bank 
of the river would be exposed to altogether un- 
necessary danger. Hancock, however, obeyed his 
instructions and proceeded with two divisions to 
join the Fifth Corps, leaving Barlow's fine, strong 
division confronting Block House bridge. 

While Meade and Hancock were reconnoitering 
the position to be assaulted, intelligence from Bar- 
low regarding the threatened advance upon him 
caused Meade so much anxiety that he requested 
Hancock to return immediately and to withdraw 
that division to the north bank. When Hancock 



l88 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

arrived the situation was already critical. Heth's 
Confederate division with a battalion of artillery 
had crossed Glady Run and was advancing upon 
Barlow. The two forces were not very unequally 
matched, the advantage in point of numbers being 
somewhat in favor of the Confederates; and Barlow 
and his men would not have been at all unwilling to 
have it out with the enemy then and there. But a 
defeat to our troops in such a situation, far from the 
rest of the army and with the river behind them, 
would have meant something very like destruction. 
Consequently peremptory orders were given Barlow 
to withdraw. This was, however, by no means an 
easy matter. The two bodies were heavily skirmish- 
ing with each other at the time, and retiring in the 
face of the enemy was a critical operation. Han- 
cock had caused the north bank of the river to be 
lined with artillery, and now proceeded to withdraw 
Barlow's first line behind his second. It was a ma- 
noeuvre in which the slightest slip or misadventure 
might be fatal ; and the two generals w^ith their 
staffs threw themselves upon the line, to direct the 
troops and w^atch every step of the movement. 
Brooke's and Brown's (late Frank's) brigades, which 
had by this time become fully engaged, fell back 
with the utmost precision and firmness. The enemy 
were pressing on rapidly, and the firing was furious; 
but these two gallant bodies of veterans bore them- 
selves with perfect coolness, reaching the position 



SPOTTSYLVANIA. 1 89 

assigned them without haste or disorder. Again the 
movement by successive lines was cleanly carried out. 
At last Miles's and Smyth's brigades were formed 
upon the crest next the river, while Brooke's and 
Brown's brigades, with Arnold's battery (all the 
rest of the artillery having by this time been sent 
across), prepared to fall back upon them. At this 
point the enemy, now fully up and resolute not to 
be balked of their prey, fell upon Brooke and Brown 
with the greatest fury. The situation was at this 
time fearfully complicated by the fact that the 
woods which for some distance lay between us and 
the river were on fire in several places, here smol- 
dering and filling the air with choking masses, there 
blazing with fury. Through this inferno of smoke 
and flame the troops had to pass before they could 
reach the bridges and the river bank. Yet with 
such an enemy before and such an enemy behind, 
Brooke's and Brown's men showed neither fear nor 
haste. Every regiment stood in its place, as one 
man, facing the foe, until the word was given, and 
then, letting go all together, made their way swiftly 
but steadily backward. Only one misfortune oc- 
curred in this movement. As Arnold's battery, after 
firing to the last instant, limbered up and dashed to 
the rear, the horses attached to one of the guns be- 
came frightened by the flame and smoke around 
them, and, swerving aside, lodged the piece be- 
tween two trees. The gun was found to be so firmly 



I go 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



held that it could only have been extricated by cut- 
ting down the trees ; and, as the Confederates were 
close behind and the supporting troops were in full 
retreat, it became necessary to abandon it to the 
enemy. This was the first gun belonging to the 
Second Corps or in position along its line of battle 
which had ever been captured during actions in 
which the corps had lost twenty-five thousand men. 
Brown's and Brooke's brigades having gained the 
river, and the north bank being crowned by a power- 
ful artillery, the Confederates made no further at- 
tempt to molest Barlow's division, and the crossing 
was effected. So ended the battle of Po River. 

But this was not to be the end of Hancock's day. 
After the withdrawal of Barlow's division Hancock 
proceeded to the point where Warren's assault was 
to be delivered. Upon his arrival he found that 
Warren had made his attack upon a position of tre- 
mendous natural strength with troops of his own 
corps and with Webb's and Carroll's brigades from 
the Second, and had been driven back with heavy 
loss. Meade, who was in personal direction, was not 
satisfied, and ordered Hancock to renew the assault 
with his own two divisions on the ground. This was 
done about seven o'clock ; but the troops did not 
behave with their accustomed vigor, and were easily 
thrown off. At another point along the Confederate 
line an attack was about this time made of a very 
different character. A column commanded by Colo- 



SPOTTSYLVANIA. lOI 

nel Emory Upton, of the Sixth Corps, assaulted the 
SaHent near the Landron House, and with the utmost 
resolution carried the enemy's works, capturing for 
the moment colors, guns, and prisoners. Had Upton 
been properly supported he would have won a bril- 
liant victory. He was, however, largely left to him- 
self (the blame of which was at the time charged, 
justly or unjustly, upon Mott's division of the Sec- 
ond Corps) ; and his temporary success was turned 
into defeat, the enemy rallying with their accus- 
tomed desperation and driving him out with loss. 

The casualties in the Second Corps on the loth 
of May may be approximately stated at two thou- 
sand and fifty, including many valuable ofificers. No 
greater loss need have been sustained in attempt- 
ing something that would have been worth domg. 
General Humphreys is right m saying : " It is to be 
regretted that Hancock had not been directed 
to cross the Po at daylight of the loth, instead of 
being ordered to cross late in the afternoon of the 
9th. Had he been, there appears to be every rea- 
son to conclude that the Confederate left would 
have been turned and taken in rear while the Fifth 
Corps attacked it in front. As it was, Hancock's 
crossing in the evening of the 9th put Lee on his 
guard and enabled him to bring up his troops to the 
threatened flank by daylight of the loth and throw 
up intrenchments. It was a mistake,, too, as Han- 
cock had crossed, to abandon the turning movement 



ig2 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

on the morning of the loth, and make, instead of it, 
a front attack on the strong intrenchments of Long- 
street's left. It would have been better to have con- 
tinued the turning movement, the Fifth Corps aiding 
by sending one of its divisions to Hancock, and 
making a front attack with the other two at the 
critical moment." 

The assaults upon the enemy's intrenchments, 
alike by the Fifth and by the Second Corps, had been 
bloody and fruitless. Assuming the withdrawal of 
Hancock's corps across the Po to have been neces- 
sary, the opportunity of the day was in the attack 
of Upton. Nothing that could be said of that heroic 
young officer or of General David A. Russell, his di- 
vision commander, could exaggerate the deserts of 
these two soldiers, the shining ornaments of the 
Sixth Corps. The support of Upton should not have 
been left to a single division. The assaulting col- 
umn should have been backed up by divisions of the 
Sixth Corps, by Gibbon as well as Mott from the 
Second, and by at least one division from the Fifth, 
uselessly engaged in assailing the center. This the 
more needs to be said because the characteristic 
fault of the campaign then opened was attacking at 
too many points. Few lines can be drawn by engi- 
neering skill which, owing to the nature of the 
ground, have not a weak point; few will be drawn 
by good engineers which have more than one. It is 
the office of the commander of an army to discover 



SPOTTSYLVANIA. 



193 



that weak point, to make careful and serious prepa- 
rations for the attack, and to mass behind the as- 
saulting column a force that shall be irresistible if 
the line be pierced. To assault at two points instead 
of one only is to double the loss while halving 
the chance of victory. To assault " all along the 
line," as was so often done in the summer of 1864, is 
the very abdication of leadership. It is gratifying to 
record that the conduct of Colonel Upton received 
cordial recognition, and that he was at once pro- 
moted to be a brigadier general of volunteers. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE SALIENT. 



Down to the 12th of May everything had gone 
wrong with the Union army since it left the battle 
ground of the Wilderness. " Some one had blund- 
ered " regarding the movement to Spottsylvania. In- 
stead of seizing that important point without a con- 
test, the Union forces, finding the enemy there before 
them, had fallen to making a series of ill-conceived 
and ill-prepared attacks upon intrenched lines, which 
had resulted in nothmg but severe losses, especially 
to the Fifth Corps, which had behaved with great 
but useless heroism. Sedgwick had been killed, an 
irreparable disaster; and almost every division of 
the army had suffered severely. The partition of 
authority between Grant and Meade had worked 
badly from the first, as it was destined to do through 
the remainder of the campaign. The troops felt that 
the attacks had not been carefully studied and ade- 
quately provided for; and the intelligence of the 
rank and file of the Northern army made them very 
poor subjects for official "fooling." 

On the eve of the nth of May Hancock was or- 














BROwli>... „ .^ 

. ^<- ■-■- ■ ■•■: -■ . 













THE SALIENT. 



195 



dered to proceed with his corps to the neighborhood 
of the Landron House. At this point the Confed- 
erate Unes, coming up from the south and coming in 
from the west to form a right angle, had for some 
reason been extended onward to inclose the Har- 
rison and McCool Houses. The addition thus made 
to the Confederate works was in shape much like an 
acorn, and appeared to be a mere excrescence upon 
their general line. It was upon this that Hancock's 
attack was to be made, as Upton's had been on the 
loth. The Salient was approximately a mile in ver- 
tical direction and half a mile in width. The troops 
occup5ung it were Rodes's and Edward Johnson's 
divisions of Ewell's corps in the works, and Gor- 
don's division in reserve at the Harrison House. 

General Grant's order directing the assault at 
four o'clock on the morning of the 12th bears date 
three p. m. of the nth; Meade's order to Hancock 
bears date four o'clock, leaving, it will be seen, very- 
little time for preparation before night fell. It was 
intended that the assault should be preceded by 
a thorough reconnoissance of the ground, to be 
made by Colonel Comstock, engineer officer on 
Grant's staff, and by Colonel Morgan and other 
officers of Hancock's staff. It was assumed, also, 
that General Mott, having attacked with his division 
near the designated spot upon the loth, and being 
still in its immediate neighborhood, would be in pos- 
session of valuable information regardins^ the ene- 



196 



GENERAL HAN'COCK. 



my's works. Unfortunately Colonel Comstock missed 
his way, and after much wandering arrived at the 
Brown House only a little before dark. There it 
was ascertained that the enemy's skirmishers were 
so far advanced as to offer no opportunity to survey 
their works; and Comstock and his party had to 
select the positions for the column of attack, with- 
out learning much definitely regarding the extent 
and direction of the works to be assaulted. 

So much of ill luck having attended the attempt- 
ed reconnoissance, it remained to bring up the corps. 
The night was dark and the roads very bad, but Bar- 
low's and Birney's divisions arrived about midnight. 
Almost the only clear ground upon which to form 
our troops was about four hundred yards wide, and 
ran in a curved line from the Brown House to the 
Landron House ; and thence, with the curve re- 
versed, on toward the Salient. Across this clearing 
Barlow's division was formed in two lines of masses, 
each regiment being doubled on the center. Brooke's 
and Miles's brigades constituted the first line, Smyth's 
and Brown's the second. On the right of Barlow 
Birney formed his division in two deployed lines. 
Mott's division was formed in the rear of Birney, 
and Gibbon, arriving at a later hour, was placed in 
reserve. As the enemy's pickets still occupied the 
Landron House, it was impossible to get any view 
of the works, and the information regarding their 
position was rather vague ; but it was believed that 



THE SALIENT. 



197 



Barlow's heavily massed division would, by following 
down the line of the clearing, be brought directly 
upon the apex of the Salient, and so it proved. 

It was near daylight before the necessary prepa- 
rations were completed. When four o'clock arrived 
it was still too dark, owing to a heavy fog which 
spread over the ground, to allow objects to be 
clearly discerned. At half past four the order was 
given. Birney met some difficult ground in his ad- 
vance, and for a few minutes Barlow's line, steadily 
moving down the clearing in dead silence, was some- 
what ahead ; but Birney's men made superhuman 
exertions, and, pushing through the obstacles, again 
came up abreast the First Division. Near the Lan- 
dron House the enemy's picket reserves opened fire 
upon the left flank of our column, mortally wound- 
ing the heroic Colonel Strieker, of Delaware, who 
was leading the skirmishers. As soon as the curve 
of the clearing allowed Barlow's men to see the red 
earth at the Salient, they broke into a wild cheer 
and took the double-quick without orders. Tearing 
away the abatis with their hands, Miles's and 
Brooke's brigades sprang over the intrenchments, 
bayoneting the defenders or beating them down 
with clubbed muskets. Almost at the same instant 
Birney entered the works on his side and the Salient 
was won! Nearly a mile of the Confederate line 
was in our hands. Four thousand prisoners, includ- 
ing Major-General Edward Johnson and Brigadier- 



IqS general HANCOCK. 

General George H. Steuart, upward of thirty colors, 
and eighteen cannon were the fruits of the victory. 
Crazed with excitement, Birney's and Barlow's men 
could not be restrained, but followed the flying 
enemy until their second line was reached. Here 
they were brought to a stand by the resolute front 
presented by the Confederate reserves, true to the 
traditions which made the men of that army even 
more dangerous in defeat than in victory. 

Thus far the affair had been a magnificent suc- 
cess. But now the moment of failure of connection, 
of delay in bringing up reserves, of misunderstanding 
and misadventure, inevitable in large operations in 
such a country, had come. Everything that Han- 
cock and his subordinate commanders could do was 
done to hold what had been gained and to prepare 
for a new advance. The leading brigades, broken by 
the fury of the assault, were got together as well as 
was possible under the savage fire now poured in 
from the second Confederate line. The reserve di- 
visions were ordered to man the captured works 
and to " turn " them as speedily as possible. There 
was not a moment to spare, for into that bloody 
space were advancing many thousands of stout sol- 
diers, desperately determined to retrieve the for- 
tunes of the day that had set so strongly against the 
Confederacy. Upon the Union side the confusion 
had become extreme ; the long lines formed for the 
assault had converged as the Salient was reached, 



THE SALIENT. 



199 



and were heaped one upon another. Carroll's and 
Owen's brigades, from Gibbon's division which was 
formed in reserve, had been caught by the wild ex- 
citement of the charge and, dashing to the front, 
had struggled even past some of the leading troops 
and entered the works upon the left almost at the 
same moment with the brigades of Brooke and 
Miles from Barlow's division.. McAllister's brigade, 
of Mott's division, had also pushed forward from 
the second line and thrown itself over the intrench- 
ments. This enthusiasm of the charging column 
was in itself commendable; but, taken in connec- 
tion with the originally dense formation, it had led 
to a dangerous massing of the troops. Such a body 
was, for the purposes of the impending collision, hut 
little more formidable than would have been a sin- 
gle well-ordered line. 

From the Confederate side the divisions of Gor- 
don and Rodes, soon re-enforced by brigades from 
Mahone and Wilcox, attacked our troops with sav- 
age desperation. Now on the right, and now on the 
left, these resolute soldiers threw themselves upon 
the disordered masses in the heart of the Salient, 
and forced them step by step backward till at last 
all of Hancock's men who had crossed the breast- 
works had been driven out ; and the Second Corps 
only held the outer side of the intrenchments they 
had captured in the assault. It was about this time 

that Wheaton's and Russell's divisions of the Sixth 
14 



20O GENERAL HANCOCK. 

Corps arrived and took post on Hancock's right, 
along the west face of the Salient. 

The contest had become beyond all comparison 
the closest and fiercest of the war. The Confeder- 
ates were determined to recover their intrenchments 
at whatever cost. For the distance of a mile, in a 
cold drenching rain, the combatants were literally 
struggling across the breastworks. They fired di- 
rectly into each other's faces ; bayonet thrusts were 
given over the intrenchments ; men even grappled 
their antagonists across the piles of logs. Hancock 
had brought some of his guns up to within three 
hundred yards of the captured works, and these 
were firing solid shot and shell over the heads of 
our troops into the space now crowded with Con- 
federate brigades. Two sections were even run up 
to the very breastworks; and, though the muzzles 
protruded into the faces of the charging Confeder- 
ates, the begrimed cannoneers continued to pour 
canister into the woods and over the open ground 
upon the west of the McCool House. 

The contest had settled down to a struggle for 
the recovery of the apex of the Salient. On our 
part, the battle assumed a less tumultuous charac- 
ter. The brigades that had suffered most severely 
or had exhausted their ammunition were relieved by 
others and drawn to the rear, to be reformed and 
to replenish their cartridge boxes. Never since the 
discovery of gunpowder had such a mass of lead 



THE SALIENT. 201 

been hurled into a space so narrow as that which 
now embraced the scene of combat. Large stand- 
ing trees were literally cut off and brought to the 
ground by infantry fire alone.* On either side a 
long ghastly procession of the wounded went limp- 
ing or crawling to the rear ; on either side fast rose 
the mounds of the dead, intermingled with those 
who were too severely hurt to extricate themselves 
from their hideous environment. 

At ten Hancock received this dispatch from 
Meade to Grant, sent for his information: "Warren 
seems reluctant to assault. I have ordered him at 
all hazards to do so ; and if his attack should be 
repulsed, to draw in his right and send his troops as 
fast as possible to Hancock and Wright. Tell Han- 
cock to hold on." And Hancock held on, with his 
men four ranks deep, keeping the furious assail- 
ants at bay across the captured intrenchments. 
Warren's attack failed, as that judicious officer had 
anticipated; and in the afternoon Cutler's division 
of the Fifth Corps marched upon the field, where 
the contest was still raging with unabated fury. 
The trenches had more than once to be cleared of 
the dead to give the living a place to stand. Over 

* The Confederate General McGowan states that an oak tree 
twenty-two inches in diameter, in rear of his brigade, was cut 
down by musket balls, falling during the fight and killing or 
wounding several soldiers. This is drawing it rather strong, but 
there is in Washington a tree eight to ten inches in diameter 
which was so cut down on the line of Miles's brigade. 



202 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

that desperate and protracted contest Hancock pre- 
sided, stern, strong, and masterful, withdrawing the 
shattered brigades as their ammunition became ex- 
hausted, supplying their places with fresh troops, 
feeding the fires of battle all day long and far into 
the night. It was not until twelve o'clock — twenty 
hours after the command " Forward ! " had been 
given to the column at the Brown House — that the 
firing ceased; and the Confederates, relinquishing 
their purpose to retake the captured works, began ui 
the darkness to construct a new line, to cut off the 
Salient, which for them had much better never have 
been built. 

General Humphreys estimates Lee's losses on 
the i2th of May, in killed, wounded, and prisoners, 
at between nine and ten thousand, making a hideous 
gap in his army. It was the first, and it was to 
remain the only important engagement of the cam- 
paign in which the losses of the Confederates ex- 
ceeded those of the Northern army — in which, 
indeed, the Union losses were not largely in excess. 
The casualties among general officers on the Con- 
federate side had been excessive, owing to the feroci- 
ty of the contest within the Salient. Two had been 
killed, two captured, and four severely wounded. 

The same authority estimates Grant's losses for 
the day at sixty-eight hundred men. Of these, 
the Second Corps lost about twenty-six hundred. 
General Alexander S. Webb, while leading his bri- 



THE SALIENT. 



203 



gade into action at the east angle with his customary 
gallantry, received a wound in the head which long 
disabled him. The officer of highest rank killed 
was Colonel John Coons, of Indiana, who fell while 
giving his men an example of heroic courage. 
Another officer deeply lamented was Lieutenant- 
Colonel Waldo Merriam, of Massachusetts. As field 
officer of the day for Mott's division, he had rendered 
valuable service in forming the corps for assault 
and in directing the movement of the column. 
The death of Lieutenant-Colonel Strieker from the 
fire of the Confederate picket reserves at the Lan- 
dron House has already been mentioned. In addi- 
tion to these, sixty-three commissioned officers were 
killed or mortally wounded — a fact which speaks 
volumes for the manner in which the officers of the 
corps discharged their duties on this memorable 
day. Of Hancock's staff, Major Harry H. Bingham, 
judge advocate, an officer rarely equaled in cour- 
age, energy, and intelligence, since distinguished in 
the national Congress, was severely wounded. 

When day broke on the 13th it was found that 
the Confederates had retired wholly from the Sali- 
ent. In order to develop the enemy's new position, 
General Gibbon sent two brigades forward toward 
the Harrison House. The enemy's skirmishers 
were driven into their works ; but Colonel S. Sprigg 
Carroll was severely wounded in what proved to be 
his last action. During the remainder of the day 



204 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

nothing occurred bej'ond an affair in which Miles 
succeeded in getting out two guns which had been 
left between the lines on the 12th, thus swelling the 
captures to twenty pieces. 

The heavy losses which had been sustained by 
Mott's Fourth Division during the campaign, to- 
gether with the expiry of the terms of several of 
the old regiments of 1861, rendered necessary a 
discontinuance of this division. Its two brigades, 
one of which General Mott was assigned to com- 
mand, became attached to Birney's Third Division. 
Several changes in the position of the corps were 
made in the interval between the 13th and the 17th 
of May, but no fighting resulted. On the i6th the 
corps received very important re-enforcements, con- 
sisting of Tyler's division of heavy artillery, fresh 
from the defenses of Washington, embracing the 
First Massachusetts, First Maine, and the Second, 
Seventh, and Eighth New York ; and the Corcoran 
(Irish) Legion, embracing the One Hundred and 
Fifty-fifth, One Hundred and Sixty-fourth, One 
Hundred and Seventieth, and One Hundred and 
Eighty-second New York regiments of infantry. 
The heavy artillery regiments mustered, when full, 
eighteen hundred men ; and even then, so late in the 
war, were of the size of brigades which had been 
continuously in the field. The material was of the 
best. Yet all this could not make good the losses 
which the corps had sustained in the first fortnight 



THE SALIENT. 



205 



of the campaign. Those who had fallen were men 
inured to camp life, to hardship, exposure, and fa- 
tigue ; in bivouac they knew how to make themselves 
almost comfortable with the scantiest means; how 
to cover themselves in rain and storm; how to make 
fires out of green wood, find water on dry ground, 
and cook their rations to the best advantage. On 
the march they had learned to cover the distance 
with the least wear and tear. On picket and skirmish 
they had countless arts by which they at once pro- 
tected themselves and became more formidable to 
the enemy. In battle, ofificers and men had become 
veterans through a score of fierce encounters. Of 
the troops named, the Corcoran Legion was assigned 
to Gibbon's division. The heavy artillery re- 
mained for a short time unattached. 

In accordance with orders from army headquar- 
ters, preparations were made during the 17th for 
an attack, in the early morning of the iSth, at the 
very point where the advance of the 12th had been 
stayed. The enemy having to a large extent been 
drawn off to their right by a movement of the Fifth 
and Sixth Corps on the 13th and 14th, it was pro- 
posed that the Second and Sixth should suddenly 
return to a point opposite what was now the Con- 
federate left, in the hope of finding the lines there 
weak. According to the plan of army headquar- 
ters, the Second Corps, starting from the works 
gained on the 12th, was to advance inward through 



2o6 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the Salient and attack the intrenchments which had 
been built by the enemy to cut off that portion of 
their line. At the same time Wright's Sixth Corps 
was to advance upon the right of the Second and 
Burnside's Ninth Corps upon the left. 

The attack was made as directed, but with no 
other result than a considerable loss, especially 
among the newly arrived re-enforcements, which had 
been placed in front in the hope that their fresh en- 
thusiasm might carry them over the breastworks. 
The divisions of Barlow and Gibbon advanced in 
line of brigades; but the enemy were found strong- 
ly posted in rifle pits, their front completely covered 
by heavy slashing, while a powerful artillery opened 
promptly upon the column. The assaultmg brigades 
could not penetrate the slashing in the face of the 
musketry and artillery, though the troops behaved 
with great steadiness. Becoming satisfied that per- 
sistence was useless, Hancock advised a discontinu- 
ance of the attack, and Meade thereupon instructed 
him to withdraw his men. The killed and wounded 
of the Second Corps were about six hundred and fifty. 
"In ordering this assault," remarks Morgan, "it 
was perhaps supposed that the corps would be urged 
to greater efforts to repeat its previous achievements 
on the same ground ; but such was not the fact. 
Large numbers of the dead were still unburied, and, 
having been exposed to the hot sun for nearly a 
week, presented a hideous sight. Such a stench 



THE SALIENT. 



207 



came up from the field as to make many of the 
officers and men deathly sick. All the circum- 
stances were such as to dishearten the men rather 
than to encourage them." 

During the night the main body of the Second 
Corps lay near the Fredericksburg road, upon the 
east side of the Ny River. General Meade had de- 
termined that the corps should be sent, the night of 
the rgth, upon a march of twenty miles toward the 
left, to turn Lee's flank; but the Confederates or- 
dered otherwise. In the afternoon of that day 
Ewell undertook a movement around Meade's right, 
his primary object being to ascertain whether the 
Union army was still in position ; his secondary ob- 
ject, to do as much incidental mischief as possible. 
Leaving his intrenchments occupied by one division, 
the successor of Stonewall Jackson made a wide 
detour, and then, turning in sharply, bore down upon 
the Fredericksburg road, at that time our line of 
supply. Ewell had doubtless expected to find, so 
far to the rear, a small force or none ; but, as it 
proved, Kitching's brigade of the Fifth Corps, and 
Tyler's division of heavy artillery recently as- 
signed to the Second Corps, were in position to re- 
ceive him. Hancock, galloping to the front, sent 
word to Birney to bring up his division at the 
double-quick. " The heavies " were found fiercely 
engaged in their first battle. Birney, on arriving, 
threw in two of his brigades, but the stress of the 



2o8 GENERAL HANXOCK. 

battle was by that time over. On finding so pow- 
erful a body in position to meet them, Ewell's lead- 
ing brigades recoiled from the encounter. Their re- 
serves were brought up ; but soon the whole line, 
hard pressed in front and overlapped upon the left, 
gave way and retreated across the Ny. Ewell states 
his loss at nine hundred. It was doubtless consid- 
erably greater. The heavy artillery regiments had 
borne themselves handsomely; they had sustained 
without panic a sudden attack which was intended 
to be another Chancellorsville surprise; they had 
faced the dread music of battle for the first time 
without flinching; and in the end had beaten off 
Rodes's and Gordon's divisions, with some assistance 
from the infantry coming up in their rear. 

The action of the 19th of May, which had not 
been of our seeking, closed the operations of 
the Union armies in front of Spottsylvania. The 
entire losses of the Army of the Potomac and of 
Burnside's corps (then not officially recognized as 
a part of Meade's army, but reporting directly to 
General Grant) from the 8th to the 19th of May 
are estimated by General Humphreys at 14,679. 
The losses of the Second Corps had been as fol- 
lows: Killed, 843; wounded, 3,958; missing, 656, 
Total, 5,457. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE NORTH ANNA AND THE TOTOPOTOMOY. 

Having satisfied himself that he could make 
nothing by further attacks at Spottsylvania, General 
Grant undertook and carried out, between the 20th 
and 31st of May, two successive movements toward 
his left, in which he sought to anticipate the enemy, 
first at the North Anna, and afterward at Toto- 
potomoy Creek. These operations are not without 
interest to the student of military science; but the 
object of this narrative will not require us to deal 
with their incidents at length. 

We have seen that the Second Corps had been 
ordered to move to the left, prior to Ewell's irrup- 
tion into our rear. The unexpected action of the 
19th caused a postponement until the evening of the 
20th. The march was through Guinea Station, where 
vedettes were first encountered by Torbert's cavalry 
in advance. At Milford Station the enemy were 
found in rifle pits, and were dislodged by the cavalry. 
The bridge across the Mattaponv having been saved 
from destruction, the corps was pushed across, the 
cavalry well out in front, to give timely notice of 



2IO GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the enemy's approach and to allow opportunity for 
the construction of breastworks. The movement 
thus accomplished had placed Hancock well out on 
the left of the Union army and in a somewhat ad- 
vanced position. He was therefore exposed to 
attack by the enemy hurrying down from Spottsyl- 
vania. This, however, was exactly what Meade de- 
sired. He hoped that Hancock would get an oppor- 
tunity to severely punish one or two Confederate 
divisions which might be too enterprising in meeting 
the Union advance. But Lee gave little thought to 
Hancock's movement, having set his own troops in 
motion to get behind the North Anna. 

'J'he other corps having come up abreast of Han- 
cock or in support of him by the 22d, and Lee 
having concentrated his army at Hanover Junction, 
fifteen or eighteen miles away. Grant, on the morn- 
ing of the 23d, moved forward to the North Anna, 
determined to force the passage. At five o'clock in 
the morning the Second Corps set out, Birney in 
the lead, and about midday arrived at the river at 
Chesterfield, where there was a substantial bridge. 
Long lines of the enemy's jaded troops coming in 
from their forced march could be seen on the oppo- 
site bank forming simultaneously with ours. They 
had, however, artillery already in position, while 
on our bank of the river they still held a small 
earthwork which protected the bridge. Hancock's 
advance pushed the enemy backward until their 



NORTH ANNA AND THE TOTOrOTOMOY. 211 

skirmishers were all driven across. He then deter- 
mined to carry the bridgehead, which was held by 
troops from Kershaw's division. Two of Birney's 
brigades, commanded by Colonel Thomas W. Egan, 
of New York, and Colonel Byron R. Pierce, of 
Michigan, were formed for attack ; and at half past 
six charged across the fields from nearly opposite 
directions, converging upon the earthwork. The two 
brigades advanced in splendid style over open 
ground, vying with each other in gallantry of bear- 
ing and rapidity of movement, and carried the 
intrenchments without a halt. The Confederates 
were driven pellmell across the river and the 
bridge was seized, some prisoners being captured. 

The enemy made resolute efforts to burn the 
bridge when they retreated, and at intervals during 
the night renewed the attempt, but were beaten off. 
They succeeded, however, in partially destroying 
the railroad bridge. In the morning Birney's di- 
vision crossed ; and after two pontoon bridges had 
been thrown over, Barlow's and Gibbon's divisions 
followed. Tyler's heavy artillery remained on the 
north bank, to hold the captured bridgehead and to 
connect the Second Corps with the Fifth, which had 
crossed the river above and, after a severe fight 
with A. P. Hill, had established itself firmly on the 
south bank. It seemed that, the Union army being 
in position across the river, both above and below 
the point which Lee held on the 23d, that officer 



212 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

must either retreat or fight a general battle. Such, 
however, was not the case. Lee's army, in fact, 
occupied a very peculiar position — one which, so far 
as I know, was nowhere duplicated during the war. 
The Confederates held the bank of the river for 
about three quarters of a mile, and then drew back 
their wings, each at a sharp angle. Their lines 
were heavily intrenched, and were protected from 
enfilade by the great natural strength of the ground 
and by repeated traverses. Why Lee, seeing that the 
Union army was divided, did not emerge from one 
or the other side and attack either Hancock or 
Warren with the greater part of his force has never 
been explained. Perhaps he hoped that the Army 
of the Potomac would commit itself to another 
grand assault and throw away a large part of its 
remaining preponderance of numbers. Grant, how- 
ever, was not disposed to make an attack upon a 
position so formidable ; and the two armies remained 
through the 24th, 25th, and 26th without a serious 
collision, though Gibbon's skirmishers were once 
driven in and a smart action took place. 

Finding himself held as in a vice on the North 
Anna, Grant determined upon a yet further move- 
ment to the left, to cross the Pamunkey River near 
Hanover town, more than thirty miles away. The 
Sixth Corps, in advance, set out on the evening of 
the 26th of May, moving by the roads nearest the 
enemy. The Fiith and Ninth Corps were to move 



NORTH ANNA AND THE TOTOPOTOMOY. 213 

by an inside route and cross the Pamunkey four 
miles below Hanover town. The Second, which 
had during the 26th been tearing up the railroad 
toward Milford, took the route at 10 a. m. of the 
27th, following the Sixth. At ten o'clock that night 
the corps bivouacked three miles from the Pamun- 
key. The long march over the dusty roads had 
made great demands upon the troops; but these 
were bravely met in the expectation that the strate- 
gy of Grant would at last gain an opportunity to 
close the campaign with one victorious battle, ni 
open country, outside intrenchments. 

The next day, the 28th, the corps crossed the 
Pamunkey, the most important tributary of tlie 
York, and went into position between the Fifth and 
Sixth, in front of Hanover town, which is about 
seventeen miles from Richmond. Between Hanover 
town and Richmond flows Totopotomoy Creek, 
which presents much the same characteristics as 
the Chickahominy, so well known to the Army of the 
Potomac through its experiences of 1862, having 
but little slope, with a broad expanse of low bottom 
lands on one side or the other, more commonly on 
both, heavily timbered, and certain to become an 
impassable swamp after a rain. From Hanover 
town a good road runs southwest, through Hawes's 
shop, Pole Green Church (on the Totopotomoy), and 
Huntley's Corners, toward Richmond. Lee had, by 
forced marches, again got in between Grant and 



214 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



Richmond, and the contest was to be renewed on the 
same terms as before. 

On the 29th Barlow moved out for a reconnois- 
sance of the Totopotomoy, and after dispersing 
some cavalry, reached Swift Creek, a tributary of 
the Totopotomoy, where he found breastworks fully 
manned. As Barlow reported that the enemy could 
not easily be dislodged, Birney and Gibbon were 
brought forward, and formed on his right and left 
respectively. The other corps were by this time 
well up. On the 30th, Brooke's brigade, supported 
by Owen's, moved against the enemy's line of skir- 
mish pits and carried them in handsome style. 
These were immediately converted into cover for 
our own men. The Confederate position was found 
to be exceedingly strong, its front covered by the 
course of the Totopotomoy, much of the ground 
being marsh. The artillery was brought up and a 
great part of it placed along the ridge. 

After a hot duel at unusually short range. Colo- 
nel Tidball succeeded in silencing the enemy; but as 
no opening appeared which promised success in an 
assault, General Hancock was directed not to press 
matters, it being understood that other corps were 
to attempt to turn the enemy's position. At a little 
after seven in the evening, however. General Han- 
cock was informed by General Meade that Warren, 
on the extreme left, at Bethesda Church, had been 
violently attacked ; and he was directed " as soon as 



NORTH ANNA AND THE TOTOPOTOMOY. 215 

he could find a suitable place " to assault, with a 
view to relieving the pressure on the Fifth Corps. 
Such an exigency was one well suited to bring out 
Hancock's peculiar style of commanding troops and 
obeying orders. With incredible celerity Barlow's 
division was launched at the enemy — corps, division, 
and brigade commanders co-operating to make the 
action prompt and, if possible, successful. In less 
than thirty minutes from the receipt of the first 
order another arrived, directing Hancock to cease 
the attack ; but Brooke's brigade had already car- 
ried the advanced line of breastworks. Darkness 
came on, and operations were suspended. 

On the morning of the 31st Hancock resumed 
his efforts to force the passage of the Totopot- 
omoy. Birney was sent forward on the right, 
crossed Swift Run, and, by a neat dash, carried the 
intrenched skirmish line across the Richmond road. 
Gibbon and Barlow then pushed close up to the 
enemy's works at all points; but the position was 
found everywhere too strong to afford a reasonable 
prospect of successful assault. The remainder of 
the day was spent in incessant and heavy skirmish- 
ing. The other corps having met in general no bet- 
ter fortune. Grant again determined to retire from 
his direct advance toward Richmond, and throw his 
army with all speed toward Cold Harbor. 

The losses of the Second Corps on the North 
Anna and the Totopotomoy had been 259 killed, 



2i6 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

1,132 wounded, 260 missing; total, 1,651. During 
the latter days of May it was decided to break up 
the division of heavy artillery under General Ty- 
ler. The Second and Seventh New York were 
sent to the First Division ; the First Massachusetts 
and First Maine to the Third Division. A new 
brigade, the Fourth, was formed in Gibbon's di- 
vision, under command of General Tyler, consisting 
of the Eighth New York Heavy Artillery and the 
Corcoran Legion. Owing to the large re-enforce- 
ments received during the month, as stated, the 
corps aggregate on the 31st of May showed an in- 
crease to 53,831. But of these the "present for 
duty," owing to the tremendous losses of the 
month, amounted to only one half — namely, 26,900. 



CHAPTER XV. 



COLD HARBOR. 



While Grant was engaged with the enemy upon 
the line of the Totopotomoy a powerful re-enforce- 
ment was approaching his left flank from the Army 
of the James. Butler's campaign had proved a 
costly failure; and the better part of his army, 
about sixteen thousand strong, under General W. 
F. Smith, had been directed to embark on trans- 
ports at City Point and to land at White House on 
the Pamunkey. Grant's plan for the ist of June 
was that Sheridan should seize Cold Harbor with 
the cavalry, and be there supported by the Sixth 
Corps from the Army of the Potomac and by 
Smith's Eighteenth Corps from the Army of the 
James. Sheridan carried out his part with vigor, 
holding Cold Harbor against repeated attempts to 
dislodge him by both cavalry and infantry in su- 
perior numbers until the Sixth Corps came up and 
made the position secure. The Eighteenth arrived 
later, and at six o'clock a battle was fought with 
varying fortune and heavy losses, but on the whole 
successfully for the Union arms. Portions of the 



2i8 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

enemy's intrenched lines were carried and prisoners 
taken. The two corps under Wright and Smith 
having occupied Cold Harbor, and even gained 
considerable advantages in spite of an unexpectedly 
large concentration of hostile forces, Hancock was 
dispatched in haste to join them. General Meade's 
order was unusually urgent. In it he wrote : " You 
must make every exertion to move promptly, and 
reach Cold Harbor as soon as possible. At that 
point you will take position to re-enforce Wright 
upon his left, which it is desired to extend to the 
Chickahominy. Every confidence is felt that your 
gallant corps of veterans will move with vigor and 
endure the necessary fatigue." 

So much is rarely expressed in orders from 
headquarters, and Hancock took it in earnest. 
Meade's hope was that the corps would arrive at 
Cold Harbor by daybreak and immediately go into 
action. This plan, in spite of the tremendous de- 
mands it made upon the men, would "have been 
carried out but for the misdirection given to the 
column by an officer of Meade's staff, who under- 
took to conduct it by a short cut through a wood 
road. After moving for some distance, the road 
was found to narrow gradually, until finally the 
guns were caught between the trees. In the dark- 
ness much confusion arose throughout the column, 
and the troops became mixed to a degree which 
made it difficult to straighten them out again. The 



COLD HARBOR. 210 

night had been intensely hot and breathless, and 
the long march through roads deep with dust, which 
rose in suffocating cl'ouds as it was stirred by thou- 
sands of feet of men and horses and by the wheels 
of the artillery, had been trying almost beyond the 
limits of endurance. It was not till between six 
and seven o'clock of the 2d of June that the troops 
began to arrive at Cold Harbor, and then in an 
exhausted condition. Upon Hancock's representa- 
tions as to the state of his command, General Meade 
postponed the attack to 5 p. m., and then put it off 
until half past four the next morning. 

The Confederate army was at last at bay, close 
on Richmond, the city being distant only about six 
miles. It was no longer practicable to turn either 
flank of Lee's position. His right rested on the 
Chickahominy. His left was hidden amid the 
wooded swamps of the Totopotomoy and the Mata- 
dequin. No opportunity had been afforded to make 
an adequate reconnoissance of the enemy's line; 
but, in view of the momentous consequences of a 
victory here. Grant determined to hazard a grand 
assault. It was, beyond question, the most unfor- 
tunate decision made during that bloody campaign. 
He has himself left on record an expression of his 
regret.* At any rate, if the assault were to be made, 
there seems to have been no reason why it should 

* " I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Har- 
bor was ever made." — G>a7it's Memoirs. 



220 GENERAL HANCOCK, 

be undertaken on the 3d of June. The enemy 
were all up and in position, so that no advantage 
from surprise was to be hoped for. Had the 3d or 
the 4th been utilized for a reconnoissance, in which 
the enemy should have been driven everywhere into 
his works while the engineers and the fighting staff 
carefully surveyed each portion of the line, some 
weak point might have been discovered* upon 
which an attack could be delivered with a reason- 
able chance of success. Opposite such a point 
should have been concentrated at least six divisions, 
to take advantage of any opening that might be 
made. As it was, with the enemy's position practi- 
cally unknown to commanders and staff, the Second 
Corps on the left, the Sixth in the center, and the 
Eighteenth on the right, were to assault, each on its 
own front, at half past four in the morning. 

Much to the relief of the troops, who had suf- 
fered intensely from the torrid heat and the choking 
dust of the preceding day and night, rain began to 
fall in the late afternoon of the 2d and continued, 
with intervals, until morning. When day broke the 
corps had been formed in columns of assault as fol- 
lows : Barlow's division had, in front, the brigades 
of Miles and Brooke, deployed; the brigades com- 
manded by Colonels Byrnes and McDougall con- 
stituted the second line. On the right. Gibbon's 

* As, for a possible example, the point opposite Wright, referred 
to in Meade's dispatch, given on page 223. 



COLD HARBOR. 221 

division was also in two lines — Tyler's and Smyth's 
brigades deployed in front, Owen's and McKeen's 
in close column of regiments behind. Birney's divi- 
sion was in support. Promptly at the signal Barlow 
advanced and found the enemy strongly posted in 
a sunken road, from which Brooke drove them, after 
a severe struggle, following them into their works 
under a heavy fire. Two or three hundred prisoners, 
one color, and three cannon fell into Brooke's hands. 
The captured guns were at once turned upon the 
enemy and the most strenuous efforts made to hold 
the position; but an enfilading fire of artillery swept 
down the line, the works in rear opened, and large 
bodies of fresh troops advanced with the utmost 
determination to retake the position. The first line 
held on with great stubbornness, but was finally 
forced out, General Brooke being severely wounded, 
Colonels Byrnes and O. H. Morris killed. Miles's 
brigade also effected a lodgment in the works, Hap- 
good's Fifth New Hampshire being foremost in the 
assault ; but these troops in turn were driven out 
by the fire of the Confederate artillery and by the 
strong bodies of mfantry advanced against them. 

Upon the right. Gibbon had no better fortune- 
That officer had directed his second line to follow 
closely, and at a given point push rapidly forward, 
pass the first line, effecting, if possible, a lodgment in 
the enemy's works, and then deploy. In its advance 
Gibbon's division was cut in two by an impassable 



222 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

swamp, which widened as it approached the works. 
The existence of this, in the absence of any recon- 
noissance, had not been known. The fire of artillery 
and musketry was terrific. General Tyler fell, seri- 
ously wounded ; Colonel McKeen, bringing his bri- 
gade gallantly up by the side of Tyler, was killed; 
Colonel Haskell, Thirty-sixth Wisconsin, succeeding 
to McKeen's command, fell mortally wounded ; but 
the troops still struggled on through a furious blast 
of fire from the fully manned works on the high 
ground. Colonel McMahon, of the One Hundred 
and Sixty-fourth New York, separated by the swamp 
from the rest of Haskell's brigade, gained the breast- 
works at the head of a portion of his regmient, with 
his colors in his hand, but fell dead among the enemy. 
A part of Smyth's brigade, also reforming and advanc- 
ing after their first repulse, gained the intrenchments, 
but the failure of Owen* to bring up his brigade 
left Smyth's shattered command unsupported. 

Scarcely twenty-two minutes after the signal had 
been given, the repulse of the corps was complete. 
Three thousand had fallen. Among officers, the 
losses had been portentous. Six full colonels — 
namely, McKeen, Byrnes, Haskell, O. H. Morris, Mc- 
Mahon, and Porter — had been killed. Generals Ty- 
ler and Brooke had been severely wounded. When 
the losses of the preceding month are remembered, it 

* See page 244. 



COLD HARBOR. 



223 



will be seen how extraordinary was the proportion 
of officers of high rank killed in this brief contest. 
And in every case those named were well worthy of 
the positions they held. They were, in truth, the 
very flower of the corps — men who were to be terri- 
bly missed in the subsequent severe trials through 
which their troops were so soon to be called to pass 
— men who never could be replaced. Among officers 
of lower rank, forty-six had been killed or mortally 
wounded. The other corps had been no more success- 
ful in their attacks. Wright and Smith had assault- 
ed, each on his own front, but had been repulsed after 
a severe struggle. At nine o'clock Hancock received 
the following dispatch : 

" Headquarters of the Army or the Potomac, 
"■ Jtme J, 1S64, 8.4s ■^- M. 
" Major-General Hancock : I send you two 
notes from Wright, who thinks he can carry the 
main line if he is relieved by attacks of the Second 
and Eighteenth Corps. Also, that he is under the 
impression that he is in advance of you. It is of the 
greatest importance that no effort should be spared 
to succeed. Wright and Smith are both going to 
try again, and, unless you consider it hopeless, I 
would like you to do the same. 

"George G. Meade, J/^t/'cv- General." 

It need not at this stage of our narrative be said 
that such an appeal would come to Hancock with as 



224 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



much force as to any man that ever lived. But he 
also owed a duty to his troops; and, feeling perfect- 
ly sure that another attack would be fruitless, he 
took advantage of the discretion given him by Gen- 
eral Meade to save his men. Birney's division, 
which had not suffered in the assault, was sent over 
to the extreme right to report to Warren, whose 
long line was threatened by the enemy. Hancock's 
decision not to attack again at Cold Harbor was 
at the time made the subject of a sensational news- 
paper story, to the effect that the order to attack 
was given and that the troops refused to move. 
An unprincipled writer has, in a book published 
within the last few years, not only repeated the 
story, but described the episode as occurring under his 
own observation. Nothmg of the kind took place. 
Wright's and Smith's second attack met with no 
better fortune than the first. In the Second Corps, 
although the repulse of both divisions had been 
decisive, the troops still clung tenaciously to the 
ground nearest the Confederate works wherever 
so much as half cover could be found. In some 
cases our men lay wdthin thirty yards of the enemy • 
in other places, according to the configuration of 
the ground, the line ran away to fifty, seventy, a 
hundred, or more. Here the troops intrenched 
themselves as well as they could with bayonets and 
tin plates; and waited for night to go to work on a 
larger scale and with better tools. As evening came 



COLD HARBOR. 



225 



on, a furious fire broke out along the two lines, now 
so near that in many cases no pickets could be 
thrown out. Each side believed that it was being 
attacked. The day of the 4th was characterized by 
heavy artillery practice and by extreme sharpshoot- 
nig. Whenever a head appeared for an instant it 
became the target for a score of shots. A portion 
of Gibbon's line was so near that it was necessary to 
dig "covered ways," by which alone the troops could 
be withdrawn or re-enforced, or rations and ammuni- 
tion brought up. Among the killed of this day was 
Colonel Lewis O. Morris, Seventh New York Heavy 
Artillery, who had, on the 3d, succeeded Brooke 
in command of his brigade. The approach of night 
brought another outburst, which was again inter- 
preted by our troops to mean an attempt of the 
enemy to carry our works by a sudden dash. 

June 5th was in its essential character a repeti- 
tion of the 4th. Through all this interval it was 
known that scores of our desperately wounded were 
lying in the narrow space between the two lines, un- 
cared for and without water. All who could crawl 
in to the one side or the other had already done so ; 
hundreds had been brought in at great risk to their 
rescuers; but there were still those who lay helpless 
where it was simple death for a Union soldier to 
show his head. Moreover, the dead of the 3d 
nearly all lay where they had fallen. If it be asked 
why so simple a duty of humanity as the rescue of 



226 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the wounded and burial of the dead had been thus 
neglected, it is answered that it was due to an un- 
necessary scruple on the part of the Union command- 
er in chief. Grant delayed sending a flag of truce 
to General Lee for this purpose because it would 
amount to an admission that he had been beaten on 
the 3d of June. It now seems incredible that he 
should for a moment have supposed that any other 
view could be taken of that action. But even if it 
were so, this was a very poor way of rewarding his 
soldiers who had fallen in the attack, or of encour- 
aging their comrades to take similar risks. It was 
not until the 7th that an arrangement was reached 
for a cessation of hostilities, between 6 and 8 p. m., 
for burying the dead and removing the wounded. 
By this time most of the latter were past car- 
ing for. Hardly was the " flag of truce" over 
when another outburst occurred, which soon rose 
to the greatest fury. The troops in the trenches 
were comparatively safe, but the plain behind was 
swept with musketry and artillery fire. The head- 
quarters of the corps were riddled by bullets, and 
the assistant provost marshal. Captain Alexander 
McCune, was killed by a solid shot while standing 
in the door of Hancock's tent. It was a hideous 
time; and no one who was exposed to the fury of 
that storm will ever forget how the horrors of battle 
were heightened by the blackness of the night. 

It has been said that the immediate position 



COLD HARBOR. 



22 7 



which Lee had taken could not be turned either by 
its right or by its left ; but afar off to the south, 
across the Chickahominy and across the James, lay 
the city of Petersburg, controlling the communica- 
tions of Richmond with the main country of the 
Confederacy. Hither the lieutenant general had 
already determined to transfer his army, hoping, by 
carefully planned and rapidly executed movements, 
to seize the Cockade City. To this end the Army 
of the Potomac was to be held in its trenches in 
front of Cold Harbor several days longer, and all 
the appearance of active operations was to be main- 
tained. The duty was, of necessity, exceedingly 
trying to the troops, especially those of the Second 
Corps, which lay nearest the enemy. Through all 
the day not a man, over large parts of the line, 
could show his head above the works or go ten 
yards to the rear without being shot. This con- 
tinued until the early evening of the 12th, when the 
corps was stealthily withdrawn. 

In the column that wound its way in the dark- 
ness out of the intrenchments and took the route 
to the Chickahominy little remained of the two 
splendid divisions which had crossed that river on 
the 31st of May, 1S62, to the rescue of McClel- 
lan's broken left. Down to the point we have 
reached, this body of troops had, it is true, been 
most fortunate in its opportunities; but its trans- 
cendent deeds had been mainly of its own daring 



228 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

and its own deserving. It had captured twenty-five 
cannon; it had lost one, disabled. It had taken 
more than eighty flags in action ; it had yielded, 
perhaps, a dozen to the enemy. Its "missing" in all 
its terrible battles had been about five thousand; it 
had captured over eleven thousand Confederates. It 
had not been more impetuous in assault than steady, 
enduring, and resourceful in disaster. But as the 
corps turned southward from Cold Harbor, to take 
its part in the second act of the great campaign of 
1864, the historian is bound to confess that some- 
thing of its pristine virtue had departed under the 
terrific blows that had been showered upon it in the 
series of fierce encounters which have been recited. 
Its casualties had averaged more than four hundred 
a day for the whole period since it crossed the 
Rapidan. It had lost 5,092 in the Wilderness, 5,457 
at Spottsylvania, 1,651 on the North Anna and the 
Totopotomoy, 3,510 at Cold Harbor; in all, 15,710. 
But even these figures fail to tell the amount of the 
injury that had been sustained. Twenty-seven 
general and field officers had been killed or mor- 
tally wounded, and several times that number dis- 
abled. In a disproportionate degree it was the 
bravest and most enterprising officers, the bravest 
and most enduring soldiers, who had fallen in the 
assaults upon intrenched positions. These were 
the men who went farthest to the front, stayed there 
longest, and fell back most slowly and grudgingly. 



COLD HARBOR. 



229 



Moreover, the confidence of the troops in their 
leaders had been severely shaken. They had again 
and again been ordered to attacks which the very 
privates in the ranks knew to be hopeless from the 
start ; they had seen the fatal policy of " assaults 
all along the line " persisted in even after the most 
ghastly failures; and they had almost ceased to ex- 
pect victory when they went into battle. The la- 
mentable story of Petersburg can not be understood 
without reference to facts like these. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



PETERSBURG. 



Grant's purpose in leaving the ill-omened neigh- 
borhood of Cold Harbor was to occupy Petersburg. 
It had not been anticipated that the actual cap- 
ture would devolve upon the Army of the Potomac, 
inasmuch as General Butler had been directed to 
seize it in advance. Butler's expedition, however, 
on the 9th and loth of June failed, with the sole 
effect of drawing down considerable re-enforcements 
to the garrison. There was still reason to hope that 
Grant's own flank movement would be successful, so 
well had it been planned, so vigorously were its first 
stages executed. The route chosen involved an ex- 
tent of fifty miles ; but, under the admirable arrange- 
ments projected by General Humphreys, as chief of 
staff, the Confederates were not only outmarched 
but outgeneraled. Strategically, the movement 
from Cold Harbor to the James, between the 12th 
and 14th of June, 1864, was distinctly the finest 
thing the Army of the Potomac had ever done. 

Warren, with the Fifth Corps, crossed the Chicka- 
hominy at Long Bridge, covering the crossing of 



PETERSBURG. 23! 

the other corps below (except Smith's, which had 
been sent back to Butler at Bermuda Hundred) ; 
while the vast trains moved at a still greater dis- 
tance from the enemy. Warren then advanced from 
Long Bridge toward Richmond, threatening a direct 
attack on the city. So completely was Lee deceived 
that he failed at all to apprehend Grant's real ob- 
ject. Meanwhile, the Second Corps reached Jones's 
Bridge, on the Chickahominy, in the early mornmg 
of the 13th, and, pushing tirelessly forward, came 
into bivouac on the James River, at Wilcox's Land- 
ing, near Charles City Court House, by evening of 
that day. As soon as boats could be obtained Han- 
cock began crossing his troops to Windmill Point. 
The operation was long and tedious, but by 4 a. m. 
of the 15th Hancock had got all his infantry and 
four of his batteries over the river. 

Wliat now was Hancock to do ? By what further 
steps was the movement, thus far so successfully car- 
ried on, to be brought to a triumphant conclusion ? 
Grant's plan was that Smith's corps, starting from 
City Point, should on this day, the 15th of June, 
advance rapidly upon Petersburg and seize the 
place, which was reported to be slimly held. Han- 
cock, with his still powerful corps from the Army 
of the Potomac, was to move by a much longer 
route toward Petersburg, to be in readiness to sup- 
port Smith, if required. But, by one of the strangest 

fatalities in the whole history of the war, it came 

16 



232 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



about that Grant omitted to inform Meade* of 
Smith's expedition. So far as Meade knew, Han- 
cock was simply to move toward Petersburg, with- 
out any orders to attack the place or to support an- 
other force in doing so. Consequently, Hancock's 
instructions only required him to move toward 
Petersburg and take up a position " where the City 
Point Railroad crosses Harrison's Creek." Hancock, 
having no intimation that he was to do more than 
accomplish this march, desired to have his troops 
rationed before setting out, as any good general 
would have done, and obtained Meade's permission 
to that effect. This should not have required a long 
time, as Butler had been ordered to send sixty thou- 
sand rations to Windmill Point; but the Fates had 
declared that the 15th of June should be a day of 
blunders. First, there was a delay about the arrival 
of rations from City Point; and when they came up 
it was found that the vessel drew too much water 
to get to the wharf. Had Hancock received the 
slightest intimation that he would be needed to sup- 

* So completely was Grant possessed with the idea that he had 
given Meade this information that it was almost impossible for 
him to believe that he had not done so. He did not, however, 
fail later to accept the assurances of Meade and Humphreys that 
they had not heard a word of the matter. In his Memoirs he 
frankly recognizes this omission ; but the spiteful Badeau labors 
to show that it was impossible that Meade and Hancock should not 
have known Grant's intentions. It would be interesting to know 
how far the few acts of personal injustice which the lieutenant 
general committed were due to this malign influence. 



PETERSBURG. 233 

port Smith, he would have marched hi the early 
morning, rations or no rations. As it was, not until 
half past ten did he start on his prescribed march. 
But this was not all. The information at headquar- 
ters about Harrison's Creek was erroneous, the maps 
being miles out of the way in this particular. Con- 
sequently Hancock took a road much longer than 
that which he would have taken if he had simply 
been told to go to Petersburg. 

Setting out thus late, and with a false direction, 
Hancock conducted his column steadily through the 
day, but without forcing the pace, as he wished to 
spare his troops and knew of no reason for haste. 
As the afternoon advanced, random artillery firing 
was heard upon the left and front. Inquiry ot 
the country people elicited the information that 
Kautz's division of cavalry had gone out in that 
direction ; and Hancock saw no reason to attach 
special significance to the firing. Meanwhile Smith, 
who since morning had been reconnoitering the 
works of Petersburg, had no intimation that any 
troops were on the way to join him until, late in 
the afternoon, he was advised by a staff officer from 
Grant that the Second Corps was on the march. 
Upon this. Smith sent to Hancock, asking him to 
come up as rapidly as possible. This dispatch * 

* " This seems," says Grant in his Memoirs, " to be the first 
intimation that Hancock had received to the effect that he was to 
go to Petersburg, or that anything in particular was expected of 



234 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



Hancock received while he was still about four 
niiles from Smith's left, the day being then nearly 
gone. Birney's head of column was just passing a 
cross road, by which it was sent on to Petersburg. 
Gibbon followed. Unfortunately, Barlow's division, 
which was moving with the trains, had got out of the 
way,* owing to another error of the map, and could 
not be brought up for a considerable time. 

When Hancock at last reached the neighborhood 
of Petersburg he found that Smith had captured 
several of the enemy's redoubts with many guns 
and prisoners, but was still far from reaching the 
city itself. Hancock was ignorant of the topogra- 
phy of the country, much of which was covered 
with dense woods. There was no time to make a 
reconnoissance during the few minutes of daylight 
remaining. He accordingly deferred to Smith upon 
the point of deciding whether another attack should 
be made, offering to put in his two divisions at any 
point which that officer might indicate. Smith, who 
believed that Petersburg had been heavily re-en- 

him. Otherwise he would have been there by four o'clock in the 
afternoon." (Vol. ii, 295.) In fact, however, Hancock had a few 
minutes before received a dispatch from the lieutenant general 
himself informing him of Smith's expected attack, and was already 
taking measures to proceed to General Smith's support when he 
received the latter's message. 

* There was a long correspondence on this subject between 
Hancock and Barlow, Hancock being in these matters exceedingly 
punctilious ; but I see no good in ventilating a controversy on 
such a point between two such soldiers. 



PETERSBURG. 



235 



forced during the afternoon, contented himself with 
asking Hancock to reheve his troops in the front 
line of the captured works. This relief was effected 
by eleven o'clock at night. 

Such is the story of June 15th. To Hancock it 
always remained a very gloomy day. He bitterly 
felt the imputations which ignorance or malice led 
certain persons in high places, as well as some irre- 
sponsible critics, to cast upon him. Stung by re- 
flections on his conduct, he wrote a letter reciting 
the occurrences and requesting an investigation. 
This letter Meade forwarded to Grant, with an in- 
dorsement which closes as follows : " I do not see 
that any censure can be attached to General Han- 
cock and his corps." The subject can not be better 
concluded than in the words of the lieutenant gen- 
eral : *' The reputation of the Second Corps and its 
commander is so high, both with the public and in 
the army, that an investigation could not add to it. 
It can not be tarnished by newspaper articles or 
scribblers. No official dispatch has ever been sent 
from these headquarters which by any construction 
could cast blame on the Second Corps or its com- 
mander for the part they have played in this 
campaign." 

Unfortunately, the misunderstandings and mis- 
takes of the 15th were carried into the i6th, per- 
mitting the Confederates to strengthen and finally 
to confirm their hold upon Petersburg, which the 



236 



GEiNERAL HANCOCK. 



excellent strategy of Grant had for twenty-four 
hours placed fairly at the mercy of the Potomac 
Army. It is difficult to say how much of the fail- 
ure to seize the opportunity offered was due to the 
fact that the fatigues and excitements of the past 
forty days had brought about a partial disability 
from Hancock's Gettysburg wound in the thigh. 
That devoted officer, who never spared himself, 
whether in camp, on the march, or in battle, was 
now suffering intense pain, due to six weeks of 
almost continuous labor in the saddle, compelling 
him frequently to seek rest in an ambulance or on 
the ground when otherwise he would have been 
galloping over the field or leading the march of his 
foremost division. Another fact that seriously in- 
terfered with the operations of the Second Corps on 
the morning of June i6th was Hancock's complete 
ignorance of the position at Petersburg. Until late 
in the afternoon of the 15th he had not had an 
intimation that any responsibility respecting the 
capture of the place was to devolve upon him ; he 
had never served in the region in which Petersburg 
is situated; the only map furnished him had proved 
grossly wrong. Finally, it must in fairness be con- 
fessed that topographical insight was not one of 
Hancock's strong points. On a field over which he 
could cast his rapid and searching glance no man 
surpassed — few soldiers, living or dead, ever equaled 
— the commander of the Second Corps in the 



PETERSBURG. 



237 



promptitude and directness with which he made 
appropriate dispositions, whether for attack or de- 
fense, however sharp and sudden the emergency. 
But of that peculiar form of genius which enables 
some men, even in a strange country, to know in- 
tuitively the direction of roads, *' the lay of the 
land," the course of streams, the trend of ranges, 
Hancock possessed little. 

For one or another reason it came about that 
Hancock's orders to his division commanders, about 
midnight, to govern their actions in the early morn- 
ing of June i6th, threw upon them much responsibil- 
ity — not more responsibility than is appropriate to 
the leader of five or seven thousand men, but rather 
more than Hancock's habits as a corps commander 
had usually assigned them. These orders were ad- 
dressed in the following terms to Generals Gibbon 
and Birney, Barlow's division not yet having got 
into place after its misdirection of the preceding 
afternoon : " If there are any points on your front 
commanding your position now occupied by the en- 
emy, the commanding general directs that they may 
be taken at or before daylight, preferably before, as 
it is desirable to prevent the enemy from holding 
any points between us and the Appomattox. It is 
thought there are one or two such points." These 
orders were delivered to the division commanders 
between one and two o'clock. In his narrative, 
Morgan severely criticises Birney for his failure to 



238 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

seize the high ground about the Avery House on 
his front. Morgan states that he rode out after 
daylight from Birney's division toward the Avery 
House without finding any pickets from that divi- 
sion, until he came close to the enemy who were 
hurrying down from Petersburg to throw themselves 
into certain redoubts opposite our left, which had 
been abandoned in consequence of Smith's capture 
of other portions of the line the night before. No 
vigorous effort appears to have been made at day- 
light to carry out Hancock's instructions to seize 
all commanding points in front. It was between 
seven and eight o'clock before Birney's troops 
fairly got to work. By this time much ground, 
particularly that around the Hare and Avery 
Houses, which should have been within our picket 
line, and could have been had for nothing at day- 
break, was occupied by the enemy who proceeded 
to man the abandoned works and to connect and 
strengthen them. At eight o'clock Egan led his 
brigade in a brilliant assault upon one of the Con- 
federate redoubts, capturing it in the very style dis- 
played on the North Anna. Birney was unable to 
carry his success far, and was obliged to leave the 
enemy in possession of ground which was to be 
taken later at great cost of life. 

Barlow's division was now up on our extreme 
left, and the Ninth Corps was reported close be- 
hind upon the road. General Hancock received 



PETERSBURG. 



239 



orders to assume command of all the troops at 
Petersburg and to make a reconnoissance to develop 
the enemy's line, in order to ascertain the most 
suitable place for a general assault to be delivered 
at six o'clock in the afternoon. The reconnoissance 
was made by Birney's division on the left of the 
Prince George Court House road, bringing on a 
very animated skirmish, with heavy fire of artillery. 
General Meade himself arrived while it was in prog- 
ress, and decided that the assault should be di- 
rected against the Hare House on Birney's front. 
The artillery fire and the skirmishing continued 
until the appointed hour arrived. The burden of 
the attack fell upon Barlow's and Birney's divi- 
sions; Gibbon's troops were, however, engaged, and 
four brigades from the Ninth and Eighteenth Corps 
were used as supports. Barlow and Birney were 
unable to break the enemy's main line, although 
three redoubts were captured with their connecting 
works. Here was killed the gallant Patrick Kelly, 
colonel of the Eighty-eighth New York, command- 
ing the Irish brigade. Here, too, fell, severely 
wounded. Colonel James A. Beaver, commanding 
Barlow's Fourth Brigade, the third officer who had 
fallen at its head within two weeks. It is not pos- 
sible to state definitely the losses of the i6th of 
June. Among the killed, besides Colonel Kelly, 
M^ere Colonel John A. Savage, Thirty-sixth Wiscon- 
sin, and Lieutenant-Colonel Baird, One Hundred 



240 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



and Twenty-sixth New York, with seventeen other 
commissioned officers. The intrenchments were 
" turned," and were closely connected with those 
taken by General Smith on the 15th. 

We have seen how, on the 15th, the golden op- 
portunity to seize Petersburg was lost. We have 
seen how, on the i6th, the late arrival of Barlow's 
division and lack of enterprise on the part of 
General Birney during the first hours of daylight 
allowed the enemy, so completely discomfited the 
evening before, to seize and fortify strong and well- 
advanced positions. We saw how, at eight o'clock 
in the morning, Egan repeated his brilliant coup of 
the North Anna ; and how, near evening, the Second 
Corps, supported by brigades from the Ninth and 
Eighteenth, made a general assault, which resulted 
in the capture of three more redoubts, but without 
success corresponding to the heavy losses sus- 
tained. At daybreak of the 17th Potter's division 
of the Ninth Corps by a most brilliant assault cap- 
tured the enemy's lines at the Shand House, with 
guns, colors, and prisoners. Encouraged by this 
success, the Ninth Corps made other assaults, two 
of which were supported on the right by Barlow's 
division. At the last of these, which began about 
dark and continued until ten o'clock. Barlow lost 
heavily, especially in men captured. A portion of 
the enemy's works was for a brief time occupied, but 
was retaken. It is impossible even to approximate 



PETERSBURG. 



241 



the losses of this day. Eleven officers were killed 
or mortally wounded, including Lieutenant-Colonel 
Bates, of the Eighth New York Heavy Artillery. 

The morning of June i8th found General Meade 
in a state of mind to demand the most strenuous 
and persistent assaults, with a view to carry, if pos- 
sible, at any cost, the lines of the enemy defending 
Petersburg. Most inopportunely it happened at this 
date that Hancock had become completely disabled. 
Fragments of bone had for the past few days been 
making their way to the surface, and after the action 
of the 17th the gallant general had been obliged to 
relinquish his command to Birney. This officer at 
daybreak pushed forward strong bodies of skirmish- 
ers, which disclosed the fact that the enemy had 
withdrawn to a new line behind the Hare House. At 
twelve o'clock, noon, under peremptory orders from 
Meade, Gibbon's division was thrown forward in two 
lines of battle, but was repulsed. General Byron R. 
Pierce, of Michigan, being wounded. Again, under 
orders from Meade still more peremptory in their 
tone, Birney advanced the division of Mott, support- 
ed by one of Gibbon's brigades and by the division 
of Barlow, and made a strenuous assault, which was 
repulsed with terrible slaughter. The attack of 
Mott from the Hare House is especially memorable 
for the heroic bearing and the monstrous losses of 
the First Maine Heavy Artillery, which advanced 
for three hundred and fifty yards over ground swept 



24:: 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



by musketry, and only retired after six hundred had 
fallen, the heaviest loss sustained by any regiment 
of the Union army in any battle of the war. 

Thus ended the last of the series of assaults upon 
intrenched positions in the campaign of 1864. The 
limits of human endurance had been reached. At 
five o'clock General Meade became satisfied that 
it was impracticable to carry the enemy's lines, but 
his latest dispatch to Birney shows how firmly he 
had set his soul on the attempt : " Sorry to hear you 
could not carry the works. Get the best line you 
can, and be prepared to hold it. I suppose you can 
not make any more attacks, and I feel that all has 
been done that can be done." We do not know the 
losses of June i8th, but not less than twenty-six 
officers were killed or mortally wounded in the 
Second Corps, twelve of them being from the heroic 
First Maine. Colonel John Ramsey, of New Jersey, 
was wounded at the head of a brigade. 

After the battle of the 18th the Second Corps, 
still under Birney, was withdrawn from the front and 
massed in rear of the left center of the general line. 
On the morning of the 21st the corps marched 
across the Norfolk Railroad and the Jerusalem plank 
road, and then, advancing to the front, continued 
Warren's line to the left, this being the first of that 
series of southward extensions which had for their 
object the cutting of the Weldon Railroad. June 
226. was destined to be a very humiliating day in the 



PETERSBURG. 



243 



experience of the Second Corps. General Meade 
had devised a great wheeling movement, in which 
three corps were to be swung around in unison, to 
envelop and, if possible, overlap the enemy's line. 
The Second, which in this movement formed the 
center, kept its hold firmly upon the Fifth Corps on 
ts right, and made its own way toward its assigned 
position ; but the corps upon the left, the Sixth, 
having a longer distance to compass, failed to keep 
up. General Birney more than once halted to main- 
tain the connection, but at last Meade, growing im- 
patient at the delay, directed him to go forward 
without further regard to the troops on his left. 
Hardly had the Second Corps resumed its movement 
when a Confederate division, which had been lying 
in a place from which it would have been driven by 
the advance of the Sixth Corps, assailed our own 
left flank with the utmost vehemence and threw the 
troops into momentary confusion, the line recoiling 
like a man from the bite of an adder. The affair 
lasted but an instant. The corps, recovering itself, 
went forward and drove the enemy out ; but mean- 
time the exultant Confederates had drawn off the 
four guns of McKnight's Twelfth New York Battery, 
and had captured seventeen hundred prisoners, more 
than the corps had lost on the Peninsula — more than 
it had lost at Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancel- 
lorsville combined. The enemy's success was facili- 
tated, if not alone made possible, by the thickets 



244 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



through which our troops were moving, and by their 
own intimate knowledge of the ground.* 

On the 23d Colonel William Blaisdell, of Massa- 
chusetts, who had distinguished himself at the Salient, 
was killed on the picket line. By June 27th Han- 
cock had sufficiently recovered to resume command. 
On July nth the corps was withdrawn from its in- 
trenchments and massed near the Williams House, 
and on the following day went into camp behind the 
Fifth Corps, Hancock making his headquarters in 
the shot-riddled building upon the Norfolk road 
known as the " Deserted House." 

On July iSth Brigadier-Generals J. H. Hobart 
Ward f and Joshua T. Owen I were mustered out by 
order of the President. These officers had for some 
time been awaiting trial on charges of misconduct, 
but it had not been found convenient to assemble 
a court-martial of sufficient rank to try them. A 
change in the personnel of the Second Corps of a 
very different character occurred when, on July 23d, 
Major-General Birney gave up his division to take 
command of the Tenth Corps in the Army of the 
James, for which position he had been recommended 
by Generals Hancock and Meade. General Birney 
had rendered marked services to the Army of the 
Potomac. He was eminently a sagacious man, and 



* General Mahone, who commanded the division engaged, had 
been the engineer of the Petersburg and Norfolk Railroad, 
f See page 180. % See page 222. 



PETERSBURG. 



245 



had an excellent understanding of military princi- 
ples. In temper he was signally cool and composed. 
He was succeeded in command of the Third Division 
by Brigadier-General Gershom Mott, of New Jersey, 
a man perfectly brave, with much of the natural in- 
stinct of leadership, though lacking a little in that 
stirring ambition which brings to their highest ac- 
tivity the qualities of a commander. 

On the 25th of July General Grant addressed the 
following letter to President Lincoln : 

" City Point, Va., July 2j, 1S64. 

" President A. Lincoln : After the late raid 
into Maryland had expended itself, seeing the neces- 
sity of having the four departments of the Susque- 
hanna, the Middle, West Virginia, and Washington 
under one head, I recommended that they be merged 
into one. ... It would suit me equally well to call 
the four departments referred to a ' military divi- 
sion,' and to have placed in command of it General 
Meade. In this case I would suggest General Han- 
cock for the command of the Army of the Poto- 
mac, and General Gibbon for the command of the 
Second Corps. 

" Hoping that you will see this matter in the 
light I do, I have the honor to subscribe myself, etc., 
" U. S. Gka^t, Lici/fe/ia /it Gc/ieraL" 



CHAPTER XVII. 

DEEP BOTTOM. 

The terrible experiences of May and June in as- 
saults upon intrenched positions naturally brought 
about a reaction even in Grant's resolute mind, so 
that the months of July and August were largely 
occupied in rapid movements, now to the right and 
now to the left of a line thirty miles in length, in the 
hope of somewhere, at some time, getting upon the 
flank of the unprepared enemy — the sentiment of 
headquarters and perhaps the orders* being adverse 
to assaults. Unfortunately, this change of purpose 
did not take place until the numbers, and even more 
the morale, of the troops had been so far reduced 
that the flanking movements became, in the main, 
ineffectual from the want of vigor in attack at criti- 
cal moments when a little of the fire which had 
been exhibited in the great assaults of May would 
have crowned a well-conceived enterprise with vic- 
tory. That fire for the time had burned itself out ; 
and on more than one occasion during the months 

* Thus Grant, in his dispatch to Meade, July 27th, says : " I 
do not want Hancock to attack intrenched lines." 



DEEP BOTTOM. 



247 



of July and August the troops of the Army of the 
Potomac, after an all-day or all-night march which 
placed them in a position of advantage, failed to 
show a trace of that enthusiasm and elan which had 
characterized the earlier days of the campaign. 

In two of these expeditions — one in July and one 
in August — the Second Corps, which had always 
maintained the highest reputation for its quick and 
clean marches, took the leading part. The July ex- 
pedition to Deep Bottom, as it was called, on the 
north bank of the James River, had in view two 
possible results : First, that the enemy's lines might 
be found so slimly held as to allow our powerful 
corps of cavalry, after the Confederate infantry 
should have been pushed back on Chapin's Farm, to 
capture Richmond by a rush, or, at least, cut up the 
railroads on the north of the city. Second, that 
whether Hancock should succeed or should fail in 
the first object, the movement might serve as a 
feint to draw a large part of Lee's army away from 
Petersburg, which the other corps were preparing 
to enter through the ghastly avenue to be laid open 
by the explosion of Burnside's mine. 

In execution of his instructions, Hancock led his 
corps out of camp on the 26th of July; and, cross- 
ing Bermuda Hundred behind Butler's line, reached 
the James with the head of his column on the morn- 
ing of the 27th. Hancock at once threw his infantry 

across the river by the only bridge that was availa- 
17 



248 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

ble. Sheridan * followed with his numerous cavalry. 
It was found that the enemy had since Grant's last 
advices advanced their troops to occupy the strong 
defensive line of Bailey's Creek, which w'as thus 
necessarily to be carried before the Confederates 
could be forced back on Chapin's Farm, as contem- 
plated in Hancock's instructions. One division — 
Kershaw's — had been thrown forward from this line 
to hold the edge of the woods which skirted on the 
west the great plain of Deep Bottom. This force 
was intrenched, with artillery. As soon as Kershaw 
was discovered, the First Division was formed in line 
of battle, and its skirmishers, under command of 
Colonel James C. Lynch, of Pennsylvania, but with 
General Miles superintending the movement, were 
pushed toward the enemy. Hereupon ensued one 
of the most dashing operations of the war. So skill- 
ful and adroit were the dispositions made, so rapid 
and impetuous was the advance of the skirmish line, 
that, without a regiment of the reserves showing 
itself, Kershaw's works were carried at the first rush 
and his line of battle was driven back through the 
woods. The fruits of this brilliant dash were four 
twenty-pounder Parrotts — great splendid fellows — 
which, it may well be believed, were brought in with 
much jubilation. Following up this initial success, 
the enemy were driven back behind Bailey's Creek. 

* It will be remembeied that General Hancock was the rank- 
ing officer. 



DEEP BOTTOM. 249 

On the right the skirmishers of the Third Division, 
under command of Colonel Edwin R. Byles, became 
severely engaged with the enemy. The four twenty- 
pounder Parrotts were unanimously accepted as a 
full compensation for McKnight's four Napoleons, 
lost on the 22d of June. 

Inasmuch as the further developments of the 
morning showed that the enemy were in well-con- 
structed works along Bailey's Creek, in full force, 
Hancock was instructed not to attack in front, but 
to seek to turn the enemy's left flank. This was at 
last found to rest near Fussell's Mill, and Mott's and 
Barlow's divisions were moved over to this point. 
About three o'clock in the afternoon General Grant 
visited the field in person. The lieutenant general 
satisfied himself that, while the heavy concentration 
of the enemy would prevent our troops from giving 
battle, the second object of the expedition was being 
even more completely accomplished than he had 
dared to hope. In fact, Lee had become thoroughly 
alarmed by the appearance of our troops in this 
quarter and nothing doubted that Grant was mak- 
ing a desperate effort to force his way directly into 
Richmond. An unceasing stream was pouring across 
the James from Petersburg to resist Hancock's ad- 
vance. By the 29th of July five out of Lee's eight* 

* This is the way General Meade stated it at the time. There 
were nine divisions in the Armj' of Northern Virginia. I suppose 
the division in front of Butler was excluded. 



250 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



divisions of infantry, with the bulk of his cavalry, 
were holding the roads to Richmond. 

Such a rapid concentration of the Confederates 
on the north side of the James had, as stated, early 
caused an abandonment of the first object of the ex- 
pedition ; but it manifestly increased, in a very high 
degree, the chances of the capture of Petersburg. 
Although but one infantry corps confronted this large 
Confederate force, Grant had the nerve to withdraw 
Mott's division, on the night of the 28th, and send it 
back to support Ord's Eighteenth Corps in the great 
assault which was preparing twenty miles away to 
the south. Mott's division was by this time nearly 
as large as Gibbon's and Barlow's combined, and its 
withdrawal left Hancock with only about eight thou- 
sand infantry and Sheridan's cavalry. His position 
on the 29th was therefore to be one of great peril. 
His line possessed no natural advantages whatever, 
and the troops he had left with him were but a 
fraction of what would have been required to hold 
it against a serious attack. To draw in that line 
would have been to invite a movement of the enemy, 
which could hardly have failed to disclose Hancock's 
weakness. Were the enemy even to suspect that 
weakness, they would pour down in overwhelming 
force and drive our troops into the river. 

In the situation existing it was decided that the 
cavalry could best support the infantry by returning 
to the south bank during the night, and, leaving their 



DEEP BOTTOM. 25 I 

horses there in charge of every fourth man, recross 
the river and act during the day as infantry. Every- 
thing was to depend upon the enemy's not obtaining 
even a suggestion of the weakness of the remaining 
column. The most precise instructions were issued 
regarding the crossing of the cavalry to the south 
bank : not a man was to enter upon the bridge after 
the first break of day. Every subordinate com- 
mander was required to acknowledge the receipt of 
these instructions, and then headquarters, worn out 
by the exertions of the three preceding days, sank to 
rest. From the sound sleep into which I had fallen 
I was awakened by hearing my name called from the 
general's tent. Running in, I found Hancock toss- 
ing on his camp bed. " Colonel," he said, " I am 
anxious about the cavalry. Go to Sheridan and say 
to him that he must see to it that not a man goes 
upon the bridge after it is light." I jumped upon 
an orderly's horse and galloped to Sheridan's head- 
quarters. As I approached, the first voice that chal- 
lenged me was, not the sentinel's, not a staff officer's, 
but the voice of the great cavalryman himself. 
"Who's that ? " I gave my message. " I was think- 
ing of the same thmg," was the reply. " Forsythe, 
go down to the bridge, and if General Kautz has not 
crossed, tell him to mass his division behind the 
woods." Forsythe and myself rode together toward 
the bridge. A division of cavalry was just entering 
upon it. Fifteen minutes more and the Confeder- 



2 C2 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



ates, who had all night listened to the low, rumbling 
sounds and the dull jarring of the bridge, and from 
their lookouts had been straining their eyes to catch 
the direction of the movement, would have seen our 
troops passing to the rear, and in all probability 
would have swooped down upon our little force and 
driven it into the river. As it turned out, when it 
became light enough for them to see, what they be- 
held was our dismounted cavalrymen returning from 
the south side, with their carbines over their shoul- 
ders, looking for all the world like honest infantry — 
seemingly the end of a column which had been cross- 
ing all night. The effect was complete. The Con- 
federate leaders did not doubt that every brigade 
which could be taken from the Petersburg lines had 
been sent in haste across the James to force a pas- 
sage into Richmond. This illusion, aided by the 
activity and audacity of our skirmish line under 
Miles, not only sufficed to save us from an attack 
which could hardly have failed to result in our de- 
struction, but held the Confederate forces closely in 
place, twenty miles from Petersburg where the as- 
sault of the 30th of July was impending. 

My story carries its moral. Here were the two 
men of the Potomac Army regarding whom it was 
popularly supposed that they won their successes by 
daring and brilliant strokes. Yet we see them lying 
awake at night, after great fatigues, to ponder the 
chances of a possible miscarriage. In how many 



EEEP BOTTOM. 



253 



critical moments of the war did the disappointment 
of well-laid plans, if not disastrous defeat, result be- 
cause able and skillful officers deemed their duty 
discharged whin they had given the appropriate 
orders? This was not General Hancock's or Gen- 
eral Sheridan's idea of a commander's work. They 
gave the right orders and then saw them executed ; 
and it was to this, fully as much as to their more 
brilliant qualities, that the successes of these two 
chieftains were due. 

It is no part of our task to tell the hideous story 
of the 30th of July. Hancock's expedition to the 
north bank of the James River had greatly depleted 
the garrison of Petersburg. Here, at daybreak, 
Elliott's salient and the regiment holding it were 
thrown a hundred feet into the air and a broad 
avenue was laid open for the advance of the three 
Union corps then in position before the city, while 
on both sides the Confederate lines shrank back m 
terror from the hideous fate of their comrades. Had 
adequate arrangements been made, and had the 
troops at hand been put in with even the lowest 
degree of vigor, noon of that day must have seen 
Petersburg in our power and a third of Lee's army 
lopped off at a blow. But the same fatal hesitation 
which had been shown by Burnside at Antietam and 
in the Wilderness here wasted the one hour needed 
to enable the Confederates to recover from their 
shock and surprise, to bring up artillery to command 



254 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

the breach, and to wall it around with resolute and 
tenacious infantry. When at last the troops of the 
Ninth Corps went forward, it was uncertainly and 
timidly, for want of proper leadersV.vrand staff serv- 
ice, while large numbers huddled together in the 
" crater," or deep chasm formed by the explosion, 
where they were ultimately captured. During this 
affair Mott's division held Ord's intrenchments to 
enable the Eighteenth Corps to be massed for as- 
sault. The remaining divisions of the Second, which 
had come in at daybreak after an all-night march 
from Deep Bottom, were held in reserve. 

Between the 31st of July and the nth of August 
the Second Corps remained in its old camps, in the 
neighborhood of the Deserted House, General Han- 
cock being employed in the important duty of pre- 
siding over the court of inquiry appointed by the 
President to investigate the causes of the failure at 
the Mine. On the loth of August General Grant 
telegraphed to Secretary Stanton : " I think it but 
just reward for services already rendered that Gen- 
eral Sherman should be appointed a major general, 
and W. S. Hancock and Sheridan brigadiers in the 
regular army. All these officers have proved their 
worthiness for this advancement." So fully did 
these recommendations fall in with the feeling enter- 
tained by the President and the Secretary of War 
that, with but an interval of two days, Sherman and 
Hancock were appointed respectively major general 



DEEP BOTTOM. 255 

and brigadier general in the regular army, Sheri- 
dan's promotion being delayed a few weeks. 

On the nth of August the corps received orders 
to undertake another movement across the James. 
On arriving at Deep Bottom it was to be joined by 
Birney's Tenth Corps and Gregg's cavalry, all under 
Hancock's orders. It was on the morning of the 
14th of August that the Second Corps debarked 
from the steamers by which it had come from City 
Point, and formed upon the plains which had wit- 
nessed its operations in the last days of July. The 
temperature of the opening day was something 
dreadful. The columns, as they moved out from the 
landing, passed literally between men on both sides 
of the road lying dead from sunstroke. Before noon 
General Mott reported that in two regiments of his 
division one hundred and five men had been over- 
come by the heat. The rays of the August sun 
smote the heads of the weary soldiers with blows as 
palpable as if they had been dealt with a club. 

Grant's orders for the expedition had been issued 
under the impression that the Confederate lines had 
been depleted by the dispatch of three divisions of 
infantry and one of cavalry to re-enforce Early, then 
operating in the Valley of Virginia, where he was 
opposed by Sheridan with the Eighth and Nineteenth 
Corps, together with the Sixth Corps which had 
been withdrawn from the Army of the Potomac. 
Grant's information on this point was, however, er- 



256 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

roneous. When our troops advanced to the famihar 
Ihie of Bailey's Creek the works were found fully 
manned; and when Barlow, at about four o'clock, 
with his own division and that of Gibbon (thi3 day 
commanded by Colonel Thomas A. Smyth), delivered 
an attack near Fussell's Mill, he was easily beaten 
off. It should frankly be confessed that the troops 
on our side engaged behaved with little spirit. Only 
one brigade — that commanded by Colonel George N. 
Macy, of Massachusetts — did anything like its full 
duty. When it is added that the two brigades most 
in fault were the Irish brigade and that which had 
been so long and gloriously commanded by Brooke, 
it will appear to what a condition the army had been 
reduced by three months of desperate fighting. 

For six days longer Hancock's command re- 
mained on the north bank of the James, trying the 
enemy's lines here and there, or seeking to turn 
their flank. Several severe actions resulted, in one 
of which the Tenth Corps displayed great gallantry, 
while sustaining heavy losses. Gregg's cavalry, sup- 
ported by Miles's infantry brigade, fought the enemy 
upon the line of Deep Creek in an action which 
redounded greatly to the honor of both those com- 
manders. But Grant had by this time satisfied him- 
self that the information on which the expedition 
had been undertaken was erroneous, and that nothing 
was to be gained by further fighting; and he ac- 
cordingly directed Hancock, on the evening of the 



DEEP BOTTOM. 257 

i8th, to send Mott's division back to Petersburg to 
support Warren in his contemplated movement to 
the Weldon Railroad. On the 19th, however, the 
lieutenant general telegraphed that it was believed 
the enemy were sending troops to Petersburg, and 
instructed Hancock not to hesitate to attack if an 
opportunity offered. No opening or weak spot had 
yet been discovered ; but Hancock, ever ready to 
obey both the letter and the spirit of his orders, 
made a close personal reconnoissance and selected 
a point a short distance to the left of where Barlow 
had been repulsed. It was thought that the line 
might be broken there; but Hancock was unable to 
perceive that any decided results would follow, and, 
as the enemy were present in great force, he even 
doubted whether the position could be held if carried. 
The situation was fully described by telegraph to 
General Grant, who stated in reply that he did not 
wish an attack made unless with a chance of surprise 
or with the prospect of some marked advantage. 
The assault was therefore not delivered. 

During the afternoon of the 19th one of Gregg's 
brigades was sent back to Petersburg. Nothing of 
interest occurred on the 20th. During the day Han- 
cock was instructed to withdraw his command from 
Deep Bottom ; and immediately after dark the troops 
commenced the movement, by way of Point of 
Rocks, to their old camps. Rain fell continuously 
during the night, and the roads were heavy, but the 



258 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



two divisions accomplished their long march by 
daylight of the 21st. The losses of the corps during 
the first expedition to Deep Bottom had been only 
one hundred and ninety-two; during the second 
they reached nine hundred and fifteen, among the 
killed being two valuable officers, Colonel Craig, of 
Pennsylvania, and Colonel Chaplin, of Maine. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

RF.AMS'S STATION, 

We now approach the blackest of all days in the 
calendar of the gallant commander of the Second 
Corps. Partly by good fortune, but more by reason 
of the pains with which his forces were brought into 
action, and of his own gallantry and address, he had 
been successful far beyond the usual privilege of 
commanding officers. Never as yet * had he seen 
his lines broken, his men driven from their ground, 
guns and colors taken under his eye. But the day 
of misfortune was to come to him as to others. 

Scarcely had the two small divisions of the Sec- 
ond Corps dragged themselves back to Petersburg 
from the fatiguing expedition to Deep Bottom, 
when they were ordered to move beyond the left 
of the army to destroy the Weldon Railroad, by 
which Lee had been receiving the bulk of his sup- 
plies. General Warren, with the Fifth Corps and a 
part of the Ninth, had, between the i8th and the 

* It will be remembered that Hancock was not in command 
on the 22d of June. 



26o GENERAL HANCOCK. 

2ist of August, carried our arms several miles 
farther southward, and, after two severe actions, 
was now strongly intrenched upon the railroad near 
the Gurley House. Hancock, leaving INIott's divi- 
sion — by far the largest of the corps — in the Peters- 
burg lines, was to move, with Gibbon's and Barlow's 
divisions, across the rear of Warren and come up 
on his left. So distressing was this movement, fol- 
lowing close upon the all-night march from Deep 
Bottom, with scarcely time to make coffee, that hun- 
dreds fell in utter exhaustion out of the small col- 
umn. The troops reached their bivouacs, near War- 
ren's command, late in the afternoon, and spent the 
night in the mud under a pouring rain. On the 22d 
the First Division was set to destroying the railroad, 
and by the 24th had torn up the track some distance 
beyond Reams's Station. To the latter point, which 
had been intrenched during some previous occupa- 
tion of it by our army, the troops were drawn back 
at night. Here the First Division — to the command 
of which Miles had succeeded in consequence of the 
deathlike exhaustion of the heroic Barlow, the re- 
sult of old wounds and of unsparing exertions 
throughout the campaign — was joined by the Sec- 
ond Division under Gibbon. Here, too, Hancock 
found Gregg with a small division of cavalry which 
had been driven in from the Dinwiddle stage road. 

Indications were not wanting that the work of 
destroying the railroad was not to proceed without 



REAMS'S STATION. 26 1 

opposition. At half-past ten that night Hancock 
received a dispatch stating that a column of the 
enemy, estimated at between eight and ten thou- 
sand, had been seen moving southward along the 
rear of their intrenchments. The suggestion was 
made that this column might be directed toward the 
construction of works which should extend Lee's 
lines to meet the southward movement of the Fifth 
and Second Corps. With the large re-enforcements 
which it was in Meade's power to send forward, it 
seemed scarcely probable that the enemy would as- 
sume the offensive with his depleted forces. Of 
this, however, Hancock had no means of judging. 
It was for headquarters to re-enforce or to withdraw 
him. Headquarters alone knew the numbers and 
the positions of the Confederate troops; headquar- 
ters alone could ascertain how far Lee's lines were 
being depleted for a hostile expedition. 

And here appears the first and most important 
criticism upon subsequent events. Hancock had, at 
the most, six to seven thousand infantry and two 
thousand cavalry. Meade could send to Reams's 
Station twenty thousand men more easily than Lee 
could send twelve thousand. A battle on open 
ground, outside intrenchments, was what the whole 
army had longed for. That opportunity was possi- 
bly now offered. With so small a force as Hancock 
had at command, not much further progress in tear- 
ing up the railroad was to be expected in the pres- 



262 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

ence of the powerful Confederate cavalry which 
might at any time be joined by brigades of infan- 
try. There was no use, therefore, in keeping Han- 
cock any longer at Reams's unless it were to fight 
a battle. But if he were to fight he should be 
promptly and handsomely re-enforced. If he were 
not to fight he should be peremptorily withdrawn. 
To keep so small a body of troops at such a dis- 
tance from the rest of the army was to court dis- 
aster without any advantage to compensate the risk. 

At daylight of the 25th Hancock directed Gregg 
to make a reconnoissance to ascertain if the Con- 
federate cavalry had been re-enforced during the 
night. Word was soon brought back that the ene- 
my's pickets had been driven in without developing 
any increase of strength. Thereupon Hancock de- 
termined to proceed with the destruction of the 
railroad, and ordered Gibbon's division forward 
for that purpose. Scarcely had the troops got well 
out of the works when our cavalry was rapidly 
pushed back, and signs of trouble came thick and 
fast. General Gibbon was at once ordered into the 
intrenchments by the side of the First Division, and 
the Second Corps made ready for whatever might be 
coming. 

A word concerning these intrenchments: They 
had, as has been said, been constructed upon some 
previous occasion of the occupation of Reams's Sta- 
tion by troops of the Army of the Potomac, prob- 



REAMS'S STATION. 263 

ably by the Sixth Corps. They were for the pur- 
poses of the approaching contest singularly ill- 
arranged. Their face, north and south along the 
railroad, was so short — only seven hundred yards — 
and the " returns " were so sharp, that every part 
of them was subject to enfilade by any enemy that 
should be able to occupy a mile of ground; and, in- 
deed, in the action that followed, the spectacle was 
exhibited of a brigade climbing over to the outside 
of the intrenchments, to escape the artillery fire 
which was being poured into them from the rear 
across the inclosed space. Through the position 
at Reams's, from north to south, ran the Weldon 
Railroad, parallel to the face of the intrenchments 
and but a short distance from it, constituting, 
whether by its embankment or by its cuts, a seri- 
ous obstacle to the withdrawal of batteries placed 
along the face of the intrenchments. The Halifax 
road, also, ran into the position from the north, 
parallel and close to the railroad. 

Such being the disadvantages of the position, it 
is not improbable that, even against the superior 
force which was approaching him, Hancock would 
have done better to take to the open and fight it 
out there. Yet it was a moral impossibility to do 
so. No commander but must have occupied the 
works thus standing there awaiting him, against 
an enemy of unknown force unexpectedly coming 
up. Moreover, Hancock felt that after his dis- 



264 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



patches of the morning he had a right to antici- 
pate that the troops massed on Warren's left, only 
four miles away by the Halifax road, would prompt- 
ly be sent down to re-enforce him. The advance of 
such a force would have covered his right and pre- 
vented the enemy from working around upon that 
flank, which, as it proved, was the vulnerable point. 
The disposition of the troops in the intrenchments 
was as follows: Miles, with the First Division and a 
brigade of cavalry, occupied the front and right; 
Gibbon, the left; Gregg, with the bulk of the cav- 
alry, prolonged the left against any attempt of the 
enemy to reach around and get upon the road lead- 
ing to the Jerusalem plank road. 

Meanwhile, what was being done at headquar- 
ters, either to provide for the safety of the small 
force at Reams's or to seize the opportunity to get 
a fight out of the Confederates under circumstances 
so favorable ? It is in trying to answer this ques- 
ticin that we encounter two singular features of the 
25th of August. The first is that, although the field 
telegraph had before noon been open from the 
Station to Warren's headquarters, where Meade 
passed the day, and although Hancock, on his part, 
used the telegraph, sending a, dispatch as early as 
11.45 A- ^^■■> Meade, throughout the whole afternoon 
and until 7.30 in the evening, continued to send his 
messages by staff officers, involving in each case not 
only a delay which might be serious in its conse- 



REAMS'S STATION. 265 

quences, but also a liability to misunderstanding, 
due to messages crossing each other. The other 
remarkable feature of the day was that the troops 
dispatched to Hancock's relief were sent down the 
Jerusalem plank road to its junction with the 
Reams's Station road, instead of directly down the 
Halifax road. This direction more than doubled the 
distance the re-enforcements had to march. At one 
o'clock Meade sent the following message in reply 
to Hancock's of 11.45 : 

" PIeadquarters, Fifth Corps, i p. m., Attgust 2^, 1864. 

" Major-General Hancock : Warren has in- 
formed me of your dispatch announcing the break- 
ing through your left of the enemy's cavalry. I 
have directed Mott to send all his available force 
down the plank road to the Reams's Station road, 
and to take one of Parke's (Ninth Corps) batteries, 
now at the Williams House, with him. The officer 
in charge of this command is directed to report to 
you his arrival. I think, from all the information 
I can obtain, that the enemy is about assuming the 
offensive, and will either attack you or interpose 
between you and Warren. Under these circum- 
stances, I fear we can not do much more damage 
to the railroad. That being the case, you can exer- 
cise your judgment about withdrawing your com- 
mand and resuming your position on the left and 
rear of Warren, either where you were before, or in 



266 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

any other position which in your judgment will be 
better calculated for the purpose, and based on the 
knowledge of the country your recent operations 
may have given you. Let me know by the bearer 
the condition of things on your front, and your 
views. George G. Meade." 

This dispatch was brought by Captain Saunders, 
of the headquarters staff. Had it been sent by 
telegraph it might have arrived in time to enable 
Hancock to withdraw deliberately, of his own mo- 
tion ; but, coming as it did, Hancock did not receive 
it until after the enemy had both driven in his 
skirmishers and made, at two o'clock, a serious as- 
sault upon the portion of the intrenchments held 
by Miles, some of the Confederates falling within 
three yards of his line. To retire from the pres- 
ence of an enemy actually formed for attack was a 
very serious matter, rendered more serious by the 
formation of the works and the nature of the in- 
closed ground, which made it impossible to move 
without observation. 

What were the forces thus threatening Hancock 
at Reams's ? Lieutenant-General A. P. Hill was in 
command, but that spirited officer was this day so 
far disabled by sickness that he was obliged to leave 
the practical direction of affairs to his principal 
lieutenants. Of these, the first upon the field was 
General Wade Hampton, with a powerful column of 



REAMS'S STATION. 267 

cavalry, comprising his own and Butler's division, 
nearly or quite four thousand strong, the very 
flower of the Southern horse, yet almost equally 
expert and daring when dismounted and fighting 
on foot. The first of the infantry to arrive were 
four brigades under Major-General Cadmus Wilcox. 
As Wilcox came up, Hampton drew his cavalry 
across the railroad, over against our left, and there- 
after continued with great activity and audacity to 
threaten and deliver attacks upon Gibbon's and 
Gregg's positions, keeping our people closely en- 
gaged and continually stirred up. Wilcox, having 
formed his line, proceeded first to feel and then to 
assault Miles's works from the north and the north- 
west. The Confederates advanced with courage, 
but were resolutely met, and were at last driven 
back under cover, while Hampton's advance on his 
side was repelled by the steady action of our in- 
fantry and cavalry, and by the vigorous fire of 
Brown's and Werner's batteries. Among our losses 
in this collision was one most deeply regretted. 
Colonel James A. Beaver,* of Pennsylvania, had but 
a few minutes before rejoined the corps, from his 
severe Petersburg wound of June i6th, only to be 
struck down by a bullet, which broke his thigh and 
necessitated amputation. Three hours later this gal- 
lant and accomplished officer was sorely missed. 

Thus far all had gone well, though the situation 

* Subsequently Governor of his State. 



268 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

was a threatening one. The collision that had taken 
place was clearly no casual encounter; nor was it 
likely that a small and unsupported force of Con- 
federates would be found so far from their own 
lines. But only four miles away was Warren's left, 
where lay four Union divisions — Griffin's and Craw- 
ford's of the Fifth Corps, Willcox's and White's of 
the Ninth. This fact seemed to give assurance that 
no disaster would be likely to occur at Reams's from 
lack of supports. At 2.45 p. m. Hancock sent a tele- 
gram to Meade reciting the repulse of the Confed- 
erates. Meanwhile Meade addressed the following 
to Hancock, which was received by the hands of 
Captain Rosecrans a little after four o'clock : 

" Headquarters, Fifth Corps, 2.40 p. m. 
"Major-General Hancock: In addition to 
Mott's troops, I have ordered Willcox's division, 
Ninth Corps, to the plank road, where the Reams's 
Station road branches off. Willcox is ordered to 
report to you. Call him up if necessary. He will 
have some artillery with him. I hope you will be 
able to give the enemy a good thrashing. All I 
apprehend is his being able to interpose between 
you and Warren. You must look out for this. I 
hold some more of Warren's forces ready for con- 
tingencies. George G. Meade." 

At about three o'clock the Confederate General 
Heth came upon the ground with the head of his 



REAMS'S STATION. 



269 



column, comprising two brigades of his own divi- 
sion, two more from Mahone's division following. 
With Heth came eight guns from Pegram's bat- 
talion, under the personal command of that re- 
markable young ofificer. At once the Confederate 
chiefs began to make preparations to turn a re- 
pulse into a victory. Their guns were drawn up 
by hand, under cover of brush, to within a few 
hundred yards of our front, while the infantry was 
formed for assault at the northwest angle. The 
troops of all arms now under Hill numbered be- 
tween thirteen and sixteen thousand. But the chief 
danger of the situation to Hancock's command was 
not in inferiority of numbers. It lay in the unfor- 
tunate location of the intrenchments, in which our 
troops had already been much shaken by the en- 
filade and reverse fire of the enemy's artillery, and, 
still more, in the weakened spirit of our men. Worn 
out by excessive exertions, cut up in a score of 
charges against intrenched positions, their better 
officers and braver sergeants and men nearly all 
killed or in hospital, regiments reduced to a cap- 
tain's command, companies often to a corporal's 
guard — this was the state to which four months of 
continuous campaigning upon the avowed policy 
of " hammering " had brought the old divisions of 
Richardson and Sedgwick. Already twenty-seven 
officers had fallen in command of brigades, one 
hundred and twenty-five in command of regiments. 



70 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



Could the killed and wounded of but half an hour's 
fighting at Cold Harbor have been called back to 
the Second Corps on the 25th of August, Heth and 
Wilcox might have charged till the sun went down, 
and all to no purpose. Had Tyler, Brooke, McKeen, 
Haskell, McMahon, Byrnes, Morris, and Porter stood 
over the skeleton regiments at Reams's, the north- 
west angle would not have been carried, and Hill 
would have gone back to his intrenchments that 
night with none but his own colors and guns. 

At twenty minutes past five, the arrangements 
for the grand attack having been completed, Pegram 
opened a terrific fire from the front at half-musket 
range; and all the batteries previously upon the 
field joined in the cannonade, which swept the 
whole space between our narrow lines and enfiladed 
or took in reverse our ill-constructed intrenchments. 
Twenty minutes later, the Confederate infantry ad- 
vanced to the assault from the north and northwest, 
while Hampton threw his dismounted men forward 
from the south. For a while it seemed that, even 
at such disadvantages, our troops would beat the 
enemy off. The slashing Hancock had ordered 
done during the morning greatly retarded the ad- 
vancing column, which consisted of the brigades 
of Cooke, McRae, Lane, and Scales, with Ander- 
son's and three regiments of McGowan's in support, 
while a steady fire from the intrenchments swept 
away the leading companies. Five minutes more of 



REAMS'S STATION. 



271 



good conduct would have ended the conflict with a 
victory for our arms. But just at the critical mo- 
ment a panic seized some of the regiments at the 
angle, which, by an unhappy fortune, consisted al- 
most wholly of new recruits, poured into the corps 
to fill the woeful gaps caused by the Wilderness and 
Spottsylvania battles. The enemy, seeing these 
troops give way, leaped the intrenchments and 
poured their fire right and left down the line upon 
those who still stood firm. Sleeper's Massachu- 
setts battery, across the railroad, was captured en- 
tire, in spite of a stout resistance on the part of 
officers and men ; Brown's Rhode Island battery, 
which was also across the railroad, met the same 
fate. A little later, the flushed and victorious 
enemy advanced upon Dauchey's (late McKnight's) 
Twelfth New York battery, along the return to the 
right, and, after a hand-to-hand fight with the gun- 
ners, took possession of his pieces one by one. 

Such were the first results of Heth's charge. 
The enemy had, owing to the misconduct of a por- 
tion of the First Division, carried twelve hundred 
yards or more of our intrenchments, with twelve 
guns. Nor was the failure of duty confined to the 
First Division. The brigade from the Second Di- 
vision commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Rugg,* 
though called upon by General Miles in person to 

* Rugg was subsequently dismissed the service for misconduct 
at the Bovdton road. 



2/2 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



go forward and drive back the enemy, cowered in 
the railroad cut and were captured, nearly entire, 
without resistance. Never in the history of the 
Second Corps had such an exhibition of incapacity 
and cowardice been given. 

But the battle of Reams's Station was not yet 
over. With the Confederates holding the entire face 
of our intrenchments and ready to sweep, in greatly 
superior numbers, adown both returns, it would 
seem that naught but further disaster and final com- 
plete rout could ensue. The enemy had, however, 
still to reckon with a few indomitable spirits. Gen- 
erals Hancock and Miles, Colonels Lynch and 
Broady, with a score or two of staff officers and 
regimental commanders whose courage rose with 
the emergency, threw themselves across the path of 
the exultant Confederates. The flags of the corps 
and the division commander were advanced into their 
very faces ; Dauchey's cannoneers with their ram- 
mers, portions of the Sixty-first and Tenth New 
York and perhaps half a dozen other organizations, 
with some of the braver individual soldiers from 
among those who had been driven out of the angle, 
joined Hancock and Miles in the effort to retake 
the captured guns and works. Not more than three 
hundred men made up the little party which rushed 
upon the enemy, standing disordered among Dau- 
chey's captured pieces. Step by step they drove the 
Confederates back, till the last one of Dauchey's 



REAM'S STATION. 



273 



guns, across the trail of which Lieutenant Brower 
lay dead, had been retaken and those who had held 
it sought refuge in the railroad cut. So daring 
and desperate had been the unexpected onset made 
by this small band of Union officers and soldiers 
that the Confederate advance was not only checked, 
but stopped ; and never during the brief remaining 
hour of the day was there a serious effort made to 
follow up the advantage gained in the first charge. 
Three of Dauchey's guns were actually hauled off 
by our men ; the fourth, which had been detached 
and sent farther down the intrenchments to fire up 
the Halifax road, being too much within the range 
of the enemy's musketry to be withdrawn. 

The situation was this: The enemy occupied the 
whole face of the intrenchments and the railroad cut, 
which, as stated, was parallel thereto. Their rifles 
also commanded the inside of our intrenchments 
some distance down each return. Murphy's brigade, 
of Gibbon's division, along the left return, had 
fallen precipitately back when Brown's and Sleeper's 
batteries were taken. Our line was now drawn 
across the ground inclosed by the works, parallel to 
the face of the intrenchments and to the railroad, 
and distant from the latter two or three hundred 
yards. Gregg's cavalry still held its place firmly in 
our left rear, having thrown off all attacks, while 
upon the new front Werner's New Jersey battery, 
the only one which could be brought into action 



274 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



— Dauchey's recaptured guns being without ammuni- 
tion — replied with undaunted courage to the fire of 
all the Confederate batteries, now concentrated upon 
it from three sides. In front were eight brigades of 
infantry, flushed with victory, and on the left a 
greatly superior force of cavalry. Yet Hancock was 
most reluctant to relinquish to the enemy the final 
possession of any part of the field; and Miles, 
though his division was reduced to a skeleton, was 
hot to recommence fighting. He had already got 
some of his men over the breastworks on the right, 
where they were joined by the brigade of cavalry 
which we spoke of as covering our right rear. 
Gregg, too, promised to join from his side in a 
general advance to retake the captured works. But 
when the question was put to Gibbon, that officer 
was compelled to admit that he could not hope to 
bring his troops up. Rugg's brigade had largely 
gone mto the enemy's hands ; Murphy's regiments 
had been badly disorganized by the enfilading and 
reverse fires to which they had so long been sub- 
jected and by their own hasty retreat when the Con- 
federates broke through along the railroad. Even 
the gallant Smyth * had to say that his brigade 
could not be relied upon for an aggressive move- 
ment. There was nothing left for Hancock, there- 

* Colonel, afterward General, Thomas A. Smyth, killed at 
Farmville, April 7, 1S65, the last general officer on the Union side 
who fell in the war. 



REAMS'S STATION. 



275 



fore, but to submit to the hard fate which had be- 
fallen his command. The blow to him had been an 
awful one. " It is not surprising," writes Morgan, 
" that General Hancock was deeply stirred by the 
situation, for it was the first time he had felt the 
bitterness of defeat during the war. He had seen 
his troops fail in their attempts to carry the in- 
trenched positions of the enemy, but he had never 
before had the mortification of seeing them driven 
and his lines and guns taken, as on this occasion; 
and never before had he seen his men fail to respond 
to the utmost when he called upon them personally 
for a supreme effort ; nor had he ever before ridden 
toward the enemy followed by a beggarly array of 
a few hundred stragglers who had been gathered 
together and pushed toward the enemy. He could 
no longer conceal from himself that his once mighty 
corps retained but the shadow of its former strength 
and vigor. Riding up to one of his staff, in Wer- 
ner's battery, covered with dust and begrimed with 
powder and smoke, he placed his hand upon the 
staff officer's shoulder and said : ' Colonel, I do not 
care to die, but I pray God I may never leave this 
field ! ' " The agony of that day never passed away 
from the proud soldier. "Were I dead," said Nel- 
son, " ' want of frigates ' would be found written on 
my heart." So one who was gifted to discern the 
real forces which in us make for life or for death, 
looking down on the cold and pallid form of Han- 



2;76 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

cock as he lay at rest beneath the drooping flag of 
his country on Governor's Island, in February, 1886, 
would have seen Reams's Station written on brow 
and brain and heart as palpable as, to the common 
eye, were the scars of Gettysburg. 

Night was now coming on, and Hancock sent 
back to halt the re-enforcements approaching the 
field, which, had they been sent by the Halifax road, 
they would easily have reached before the main 
assault fell. He had no fear of further attack from 
the enemy, who seemed content to let him alone. It 
was more than two hours since the Confederates had 
gained their signal success, yet so stubborn up to 
the very moment of panic had been the resistance 
offered by our troops, so savage had been the on- 
slaught of the small column which retook and car- 
ried off Dauchey's guns, that they showed no dispo- 
sition to renew hostilities. After dark Hancock 
drew off his broken battalions. At the same moment 
the enemy began their march back to the Petersburg 
lines, carrying with them nine guns, seven colors, 
and seventeen hundred prisoners. Of Hancock's 
staff, Captain Edward B. Brownson, commissary of 
musters, a most gallant, devoted, and accomplished 
officer, had been killed ; the assistant adjutant gen- 
eral. Colonel Walker, had been captured. 

The Second Corps returned to the Union lines, 
which it had left for the ill-fated expedition to 
Reams's Station, reduced in numbers and sad at 



REAMS'S STATION. 



277 



heart. In the language of a few paltry souls that 
had heard its customary praises with something of 
envy, "its comb had been cut." But not from'the 
commander of the Army of the Potomac or from the 
great silent chief who ordered all the armies of the 
United States came one word of reproof or of blame. 
General Meade did not even allow the night to pass 
without sending a message of consolation to the 
faithful lieutenant who had never failed him in act 
or thought, and whose perfect subordination had 
throughout the whole campaign been as conspicuous 
as his resolution, daring, and address in battle. Be- 
fore midnight came, the gallant, knightly gentleman 
at the head of the Army of the Potomac sent this 
dispatch : 

" Headquarters, Army of the Potomac, 
"///'. M., August 2j, 1864. 

" Df.ar General : No one sympathizes with you 
more than I do in the misfortunes of this evening. 
McEntee gave me such good accounts of affairs up 
to the time he left, and it was then so late, I deferred 
going to you as I intended. If I had had any doubt 
of your ability to hold your lines from a direct at- 
tack I would have sent Willcox with others down 
the railroad; but my anxiety was about your rear, 
and my apprehension was that they would either 
move around your left or intervene between you 
and Warren. To meet the first contingency I sent 
Willcox down the plank road, and for the second I 



2/8 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



held Crawford and White ready to move and attack. 
At the same time 1 thought it likely, after trying 
you, they might attack Warren, and wished to leave 
him, until the last moment, some reserves. I am 
satisfied you and your command have done all in 
your power, and though you have met with a re- 
verse, the honor and escutcheon of the old Second 
is as bright as ever, and will on some future oc- 
casion prove it is only when enormous odds are 
brought against them that they can be moved. 

" Don't let this matter worry you, because you 
have given me every satisfaction. Truly yours, 

" George G. Meade, Major General." 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE BOYDTON ROAD. 



The Boydton plank road expedition, toward 
the end of October, was the last effort made by Gen- 
eral Grant to reach the Southside Railroad before 
winter should close in upon the armies confronting 
each other upon the Appomattox and the James. 
The general plan of the expedition was that Han- 
cock, with two divisions of his corps, emerging from 
behind our lines, should move rapidly to the left, 
carry the Vaughan Road crossing of Hatcher's Run ; 
thence, by cross roads and over the open country, 
make for the Claiborne road, which passes over 
Hatcher's Run farther up the stream, and, crossing 
here, should, if practicable, advance upon the South- 
side Railroad and seize a commanding position near 
it. Gregg's small division, which was about all there 
was left of the cavalry of the Potomac Army, the 
rest being in the valley with Sheridan, was to form 
a part of Hancock's column, moving upon his left 
and covering his rear. At the same time Parke, 
with the Ninth Corps, which held the end of our 
established line, was to move to the left in the early 
19 



28o GENERAL HANCOCK. 

morning and attack the enemy on the hither side of 
Hatcher's Run. " It is probable," the order read, 
" that the enemy's line of intrenchments is incom- 
plete at this point, and the commanding general ex- 
pects, by a secret and sudden movement, to surprise 
them and carry their half-formed works." Should, 
however, Parke not break the enemy's lines, he was 
to remain confronting them. Warren, with the Fifth 
Corps, was to support Parke in his attack ; but if 
Parke failed to get through, Warren was then to 
cross Hatcher's Run and move up on the right rear 
of Hancock, ready to recross the Run and turn in 
on the enemy's flank should he find it exposed. 

The palpable criticism upon this plan of move- 
ment is that practically it made everything turn 
upon the truth of the report that the enemy's works 
were not finished as far as Hatcher's Run. So that 
when Parke, moving in the early morning, found 
that the Confederate Ime had been completed 
through the entire distance to the stream, and was 
therefore, under his orders, brought to a stand, all 
that threatened any serious consequences to the 
enemy was over and past. It is true that Hancock's 
column was still to proceed on its way toward the 
Southside Railroad ; but that force, comprising only 
two meager divisions of infantry with one of cav- 
alry, was too small to accomplish much in the way 
of a turning movement. Had two corps been set on 
foot, as was to be done in the expedition of the fol- 



THE BOYDTON ROAD. 28 1 

lowing March, results of importance might have been 
achieved; but the troops under Hancock's command 
were far too few for such an enterprise. 

Hancock got off, as usual, in good time, and, 
pushing rapidly forward, carried the crossing of 
Hatcher's Run by the Vaughan road, Egan's divi- 
sion in advance, with the loss of about fifty men ; 
and then, with both his divisions, Gregg's cavalry on 
his left, made for the Boydton road, where he 
nearly succeeded in capturing a wagon train. At 
Burgess's Mill, where the Boydton road crosses 
Hatcher's Run above its great bend, the enemy 
were found in position with artillery. After a sharp 
contest, the Confederates were driven across the 
Run, whereupon the bulk of Mott's division was 
sent out the White Oak road to the left, to be in 
readiness for continuing a movement toward the 
railroad. At this juncture a message was received 
from headquarters directing a halt, and a few min- 
utes later Generals Grant and Meade came upon 
the ground bringing news of the failure of Parke's 
movement, and also the intelligence that Crawford's 
division of the Fifth Corps was across .the Run and 
working its way up the west side. Hancock was 
directed to extend his line to the right to connect 
with Crawford and to suspend his own movement. 

It will readily be seen that by these orders the 
whole expedition was practically given up. Parke, 
finding the enemy's works complete to Hatcher's 



282 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

Run, was resting in front of them, with instructions 
not to attack. Beyond the Run were only Craw- 
ford's division, hugging the west bank of the 
stream, and Hancock's two divisions — one at Bur- 
gess's Mill, one advanced out the \Vhite Oak road — 
with Gregg's cavalry partly on the left with Mott, 
partly in rear to ward off the enemy's cavalry, which 
had already got in upon the Boydton road farther 
down, and were sending their shells up the road to 
meet and cross shells now pouring in upon the plain 
at Burgess's from across the Run, and also from 
adown the White Oak road beyond Mott. I'he 
situation was in no way a pleasing one, nor was 
there anything about it which was promising. The 
Union force thus detached was confessedly too 
small to advance toward the railroad, while its pres- 
ence there invited the audacious attempts of the 
enemy upon its flank and rear. It was certain, from 
what was known of Lee's army, that the day would 
not pass without a repetition of those attacks through 
woods and swamps, which had so often brought dis- 
aster to our outlying forces. 

After surveying the ground for a while, during 
the course of which General Grant exposed himself 
in a remarkably daring manner to the fire of the 
enemy, which was now poured unremittingly into 
the narrow space occupied by our troops, Grant and 
Meade rode away, bidding Hancock hold on until 
morning and then withdraw. The reasons which 



THE BOYDTON ROAD. 283 

actuated the commander in chief in putting an end 
to the expedition are thus stated by Badeau : 

" The rebels were evidently in force north of the 
Creek with strong defenses. Their intrenched line 
extended far beyond the point at which it had been 
supposed to turn to the north, and when the National 
army advanced, Lee had simply moved out and oc- 
cupied the works already prepared. The contem- 
plated movement was thus impracticable. The rebel 
position could perhaps be carried, but only with ex- 
treme difficulty and loss of life — a loss which the 
advantage to be gained would not compensate, 
while in the event of repulse disaster might be 
grave, stretched out as the army was, with its flanks 
six miles apart, and the creek dividing Warren's 
corps. Any serious rebuff or loss was especially to 
be deprecated at this crisis. The presidential elec- 
tion was only ten days off, and the enemies of the 
nation at the North were certain to exaggerate every 
mishap. Success at the polls was just now even 
more important than a victory in the field, and it 
would have been most unwise to risk greatly on this 
occasion. Accordingly, when Grant returned from 
the bridge, he gave orders to suspend the move- 
ment. Hancock was directed to hold his position 
till the following morning, then withdraw by the 
same road along which he had advanced." 

Thus, so far as the plans of Grant or the orders 
to Hancock were concerned, the Boydton road ex- 



284 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

pedition was at an end. Nothing more was to be 
attempted. The expeditionary column was to rest 
until morning, and then withdraw. But the Confed- 
erates willed otherwise, and the Second Corps was 
yet to have a little fighting for its marching. Guided 
by the sound impulse which always actuated the 
leaders of the Army of Northern Virginia whenever 
the Army of the Potomac moved against their flanks, 
General Heth, who commanded this end of Lee's 
line, was already in motion to issue from his works 
and, taking advantage of the strange and bewilder- 
ing country, to deliver a heavy blow upon our 
adventurous column. Every brigade that could be 
called in for the purpose was drawn down to the 
edge of Hatcher's Run with a view to cross and 
strike Hancock on his right flank. This movement, 
so often successful, was to fail here, and to fail with 
loss and disaster; but it would have been fourfold a 
failure had Crawford pushed his division up the Run 
with vigor. Hours had elapsed since he crossed the 
stream, and yet nothing had been seen or heard of' 
him, although the distance was short. Every effort 
to communicate with Crawford himself by feeling 
out and backward from our right had come to 
nothing. In fact, that ofiicer had lost direction in 
the wooded swamps, and, on encountering a few 
score of the enemy's skirmishers,* had halted and 

* " Fifty or seventy-five sharpshooters," says General Heth. 



THE BOYDTON ROAD. 



285 



taken up a position so far to Hancock's rear as to 
be useless as a protection to that flank. 

The afternoon had somewhat advanced when 
Hancock determined to throw Egan's division across 
the Run at Burgess's Mill and seize the heights on 
the other side, not with any view to prosecuting the 
movement toward the Southside Railroad, but for 
the better protection of his own position. Egan was 
already moving to carry out this purpose when a 
dire commotion on the right told that the Confed- 
erates had, under cover of the dense woods, as- 
sumed the initiative. Heth, with about five thou- 
sand men, taking advantage of a ford known to his 
troops through long occupation of the ground, and 
of an old wood road which led down into Hancock's 
right rear, had crossed the stream without artillery, 
fallen upon Pierce's small brigade, and driven it 
back pellmell upon two guns of Beck's battery 
which were near the edge of the clearing. These 
guns the exulting enemy at once seized upon, and, 
rapidly deploying, proceeded to form line of battle 
in the open. Throwing themselves across the Boyd- 
ton road, they faced south against the small force 
which they saw in the clearing. For the moment 
the stroke was completely successful. Our flank 
had been turned; our right had been driven in; two 
of our guns were in the enemy's hands; the ammuni- 
tion trains within the clearing were, of course, in a 
wild stampede. This was the sort of thing which — 



286 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

taking advantage of their familiarity with the ground, 
of the opportunities afforded by fords and roads 
known only to themselves, of their better woodcraft 
and more rapid marching — the Confederates, giving 
scope and swing to their greater constitutional au- 
dacity and contempt of risks, had attempted scores 
of times and had almost invariably accomplished. 
Seldom had any such movement been better begun 
than this on the 27th of October, or achieved a 
more decided initial success. 

But Heth had this time disturbed a hornet's nest. 
As soon as the volleys of Pierce's retreating regi- 
ments told that the enemy were upon him, Hancock 
put himself at the head of all the cavalry and in- 
fantry which were m reserve within the clearing, and 
advanced against the foe, sending word up to Egan, 
of whose position above them on the road Heth's 
people seem to have had no suspicion, to face about 
and charge them from behind. That enterprising 
officer had been halted in the very act of crossing 
the stream by the sound of the firing, and now even 
before the order reached him he was sweeping down 
upon the enemy from the mill above. Caught thus 
between two lines, the Confederates made slight re- 
sistance, bat, taking to their heels, sought refuge in 
the woods from which they had a few minutes be- 
fore emerged, leaving nine hundred prisoners in our 
hands, and returning Beck's two guns in as good 
order as when they borrowed them. 



THE BOYDTON ROAD. 



287 



The news of Hancock's repulse of Heth, when it 
reached General Meade about nightfall, aroused a 
momentary hope that something might yet come of 
the expedition ; and Hancock was informed that 
Ayres's division of the Fifth Corps had been ad- 
vanced to Armstrong's Mill, some miles in his rear, 
and would be ordered up if he deemed it advisable 
to remain in his position and resume operations in 
the morning. But Hancock was especially advised 
that the bulk of the fighting of the next day must 
not be made to fall upon Ayres's and Crawford's 
divisions. The responsibility thus devolved upon 
Hancock was a painful one. It went much agamst 
his grain while in a subordmate position to with- 
draw from the presence of the enemy without a 
positive order. Yet what was to be gained by re- 
maining at Burgess's Mill ? The position as a de- 
fensive one had been proved by the day's experience 
to be about as bad as could be found, and no for- 
ward movement was contemplated. The inhibition 
to use the Fifth Corps for the main part of the 
fighting took away a great deal of the value of those 
possible re-enforcements. His own small command 
had been much worn by the marching and the fight- 
ing of the day, which had cost fourteen hundred 
men. The night was dark, the rain was falling 
heavily ; only one narrow road was available for the 
movement. In this situation the scale was turned 
by the report of General Gregg, whose cavalry had 



288 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

all day been pressed hard by the superior numbers 
of the enemy, that his regiments were out of car- 
tridges, and that it would be impossible, drawn out 
as they were through miles of woods, to resupply 
them in the darkness and the rain. Consequently 
the order to retire was given. The wounded were 
as far as possible loaded upon the empty ammuni- 
tion wagons and the few ambulances which had been 
allowed to accompany the column, the pickets were 
withdrawn, and the two divisions of the Second Corps 
took up the route for the other side of Hatcher's 
Run. The march was accomplished rapidly and 
safely, and the old camps were regained the next day. 

THE .AIIDDLE MILITARY DEPARTMENT. 

The expedition to the Boydton plank road af- 
forded, as events shaped themselves, the last occa- 
sion on which Hancock was to encounter the enemy. 
During the month of November, his wounds still 
troubling him, that officer sought a leave of absence 
to enable him to visit the North, to obtain rest and 
medical care after the labors of the campaign. 
There was in this no thought that the opening 
spring would not see him again at the head of his 
own corps, taking part in the decisive operations 
of the Army of the Potomac against an enemy mani- 
festly now too much worn greatly to protract the 
contest. But Grant had for some time entertained 
other views; and Hancock's intimation of a desire 



THE BOYDTOX ROAD. 



289 



for a leave of absence was met with the suggestion 
that he should return to the North for the winter, 
and, with the aid of his military prestige and personal 
popularity, should raise a new corps, to be composed 
entirely of veterans, with which he might take the 
field upon the renewal of hostilities in the spring. 
It was not a part of Grant's private purposes, how- 
ever, that this body of troops should join the Army 
of the Potomac. His plan was that, as soon as 
Sheridan with his magnificent cavalry should leave 
the Valley of Virginia to go south and attach him- 
self to Sherman's column pushing up along the coast, 
Hancock should assume command of all the troops 
in the Middle Military Division, to be in readiness 
to move up the valley against Lee or to cut off the 
Confederate retreat to Lynchburg, should that be 
attempted. The idea of having either Meade or 
Hancock, preferably the former, in command of the 
Middle Military Division, while the other of these 
officers remained in command of the Army of the 
Potomac, was one which Grant had long cherished. 
We have seen (page 242) that on the 25th of July 
Grant telegraphed to President Lincoln, suggesting 
that Meade be placed in command of the Middle 
Division, and that the Army of the Potomac be 
given to Hancock. Again, on the nth of October, 
in connection vvith the recommendation that Sheri- 
dan be sent to Missouri, Grant telegraphed Secretary 
Stanton : " Place Meade where Sheridan is and put 



2Q0 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

Hancock in command of the Army of the Potomac." 
To the lieutenant general, in this frame of mind, 
Hancock's application for temporary relief from 
service in the field came as a favorable opportunity 
for so arranging affairs that Hancock should take 
the Middle Division, while Meade remained in com- 
mand of the Army of the Potomac, from which, un- 
der the circumstances, he could scarcely be removed 
without hardship. 

In carrying out the foregoing views Hancock 
was relieved from the command of the Second 
Corps, which, he turned over to Major-General An- 
drew A. Humphreys on the 26th of November. In 
his order taking leave of the corps Hancock said: 
" The gallant bearing of the intrepid officers and 
men of the Second Corps on the bloodiest fields of 
the war; the dauntless valor displayed by them in 
many brilliant assaults on the enemy's strongest 
positions ; the great number of colors, guns, and 
prisoners, and other trophies of war captured by 
them in many desperate combats ; their unswerving 
devotion to duty and heroic constancy under all the 
dangers and hardships which such campaigns entail — 
have won for them an imperishable renown and the 
grateful admiration of their countrymen. The story 
of the Second Corps will live in history, and to its 
ofificers and men will be ascribed the honor of having 
served their country with unsurpassed fidelity and 
courage. Conscious that whatever military honor 



THE BOYDTON ROAD. 



291 



has fallen to me during my association with the Sec- 
ond Corps has been won by the gallantry of the offi- 
cers and soldiers I have commanded, 1 feel that in 
parting from them I am severing the strongest ties 
of my military life." 

The recruiting part of Secretary Stanton's plan 
did not prove a success. So far as the soldiers in 
the field were disposed to re-enlist at all, it was gen- 
erally with their own regiments that they elected to 
serve, while among those who had left the front 
and returned to civil life the mducements presented 
by States and towns, in the mad competition of 
higher and still higher bounties, made the offers of 
the United States Government seem poor and mean 
indeed. Hence it came about that the recruiting 
for the new corps went on but slowly from Decem- 
ber to February. In the latter month Hancock, 
foreseeing the speedy opening of another campaign, 
was already beginning to move for his own return 
to the Army of the Potomac, when he received an 
intimation of Grant's purposes regarding him. These 
were to the effect that, inasmuch as Sheridan was 
about ready to leave the valley on his great raid 
southward to join Sherman, Hancock should proceed 
to Winchester and take command of all the remaining 
troops available for field service in the four depart- 
ments constituting the Middle Division. Grant's 
own statement of his objects is as follows: "It was 
my expectation at the time that in the final opera- 



292 GENERAL HANCOCK, 

tions Hancock should move either up tlie valley or 
else east of the Blue Ridge to Lynchburg, the idea 
being to make the spring campaign the close of the 
war. I expected — with Sherman coming up from the 
south, Meade south of Petersburg and around Rich- 
mond, and Thomas's command in Tennessee, with 
depots of supplies established in the eastern part of 
that State — to move from the direction of Washing- 
ton or the valley toward Lynchburg ; we would then 
have Lee so surrounded that his supplies would be 
cut off entirely, making it impossible for him to sup- 
port his army." — Grant's Memoirs, vol. ii, J42, J4j. 

It will be seen that of the projected operations 
of the opening spring, Hancock's advance on Lynch- 
burg was to be the substantive part. 

It is too well known to need recital here, how, 
almost on a momentary impulse, another plan was 
substituted for this, and the war came to an end 
with a tremendous rush which not even the most 
sanguine had anticipated. Hancock, proceeding to 
Winchester, relieved Sheridan there on the 26th of 
February. The next morning the great cavalryman 
started southward with the splendid corps which 
had won such renown in the valley, which up to 
the time of Sheridan's appearance there had been 
known to the country only as the Valley of Hu- 
miliation. Finding the bridges along his projected 
route generally destroyed and the rivers swollen 
high by weeks of rain, Sheridan availed himself of 



THE BOYDTON ROAD. 293 

the discretion invested in him to come up on Grant's 
left at Petersburg. His powerful cavalry corps hav- 
ing thus unexpectedly become available, Grant de- 
termined to utilize it m a movement around Lee's 
right directed upon the White Oak road, though still 
only as a step toward its passage south to join Sher- 
man according to the original plan. 

But the first stages of the expedition brought 
about a momentous change of purpose to which no 
one contributed so much as the great cavalryman 
himself, who was most reluctant to leave the Army 
of the Potomac when a blow was to be struck. 
Largely in consequence of his representations, Grant 
determined to use the cavalry for all it was worth in 
the movement against the Southside Railroad. Then 
came the desperate fighting of the 31st of March, 
which made it manifest that the beginning of the 
end had come, and that Lee's army, not Johnston's, 
was to be dealt with. On the ist of April Sheridan 
and Warren, advancing upon Five Forks, won there 
a victory which to the sorely depleted Confederate 
forces was simply fatal. As the news of the day's 
triumph flashed along the Petersburg lines the 
Union army felt in its soul that the time had come 
when the frowning works which had so long held it 
at bay must fall before one tremendous assault. In 
the early morning of the 2d of April, the Sixth, 
Ninth, and Twenty-fourth Corps leaped their in- 
trenchments and broke through the enemy's line at 



2Q4 GENERAL HANXOCK. 

several points; then, sweeping down to right and 
to left, moved onward, capturing thousands of pris- 
oners, miles of breastworks, and countless artillery. 
Petersburg fell, and with it Richmond, the supreme 
object of four years of bloody fighting. A week of 
wonders followed. Lee's army, attempting to es- 
cape, was beset in flank and rear by troops that 
seemed for the time to have lost the sense alike of 
fear and of fatigue. The infantry led in the pursuit 
with all the speed of cavalry. Battles were fought 
upon the double-quick. Divisions and army corps 
marched or ran in deployed lines from daylight until 
dark. At Appomattox Court House, on April 9, 
1865, the much-enduring Army of Northern Virginia, 
after performing prodigies of valor, surrounded and 
brought to bay by fourfold odds, was captured en- 
tire. Sherman came sweeping up like a whirlwind 
from the South, driving before him the wreck of 
Johnston's army, and the greatest rebellion of mod- 
ern times was crushed. So it happened that Han- 
cock—who, from Williamsburg to the Boydton road, 
had been the most conspicuous single figure in the 
Army of the Potomac— was left out of the final tri- 
umph. The column which he had gathered at Win- 
chester to perform the part mapped out for him in 
Grant's plan of the spring campaign found itself 
without an enemy to encounter, where for four years 
had been furious, unrelenting war. 



CHAPTER XX. 



AFTER THE WAR. 



Only five days after Appomattox the joy of the 
nation was changed to mourning and to horror by 
the savage assassination of the kindly and benign 
President, who had borne in his own heart so much 
of the sorrows, the anxieties, and the griefs of the 
people throughout the terrible struggle just brought 
to a fortunate conclusion. On the 25th of April 
General Hancock, in whose military division Wash- 
ington lay, was ordered to establish his headquarters 
in that city, and was directed to consider himself 
"specially charged with the security of the capital, 
the public archives and the public property therein, 
and with the necessary protection to the President, 
the officers of the Government, and the loyal citi- 
zens." In that time of suspense and dread no offi- 
cer's coming could have brought more relief to the 
overstrained feelings of the country or given stronger 
assurance of order. It was under his firm command 
that the accomplices of President Lincoln's assassin 
were brought to trial, convicted, and executed. 



296 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



On July 30, 1S65, the Middle Military Division 
was abolished and the Middle Military Department 
was constituted, with Hancock in command, head- 
quarters being in Baltimore. On July 26, 1866, 
Hancock received his appointment as major gen- 
eral in the regular army. The month following he 
was sent to command the Department of the Mis- 
souri, with headauarters at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. 
In the fall of that year began the trouble with the 
turbulent and warlike Cheyennes, with whom were 
associated the Kiowas and the Arapahoes. The 
depredations and outrages of these tribes, irritated 
by the progress of the Pacific Railroad, increased 
during the winter of i866-'67 until travel across the 
plains was nearly suspended. In March of the latter 
year Hancock moved from Fort Riley with a force 
of all arms about fourteen hundred strong, reaching 
Fort Larned, near the Arkansas River, in April. It 
was hoped by this demonstration to overawe the dis- 
contented and prevent the spread of insurrection. 
But by this time the Indians of the plains had be- 
come very generally involved in hostilities. No 
decisive action took place prior to September, when 
Hancock, by order of the President, proceeded to 
New Orleans to assume command of the Fifth Mili- 
tary District, comprising Louisiana and Texas. 

It was while in command at New Orleans that 
Hancock came into collision with those who were 
directing the course of reconstruction in the lately 



AFTER THE WAR. 



297 



insurgent States. The following is the text of the 
celebrated General Order No. 40, with which he as- 
sumed his new command: 

" Headquarters, Fifth Military District, 

" New Orleans, L a., November 2g, 1S67. 
" General Orders No. 40. 

"I. In accordance with General Orders No. 81, 
Headquarters of the Army, Adjutant General's Of- 
fice, Washington, D. C., August 27, 1867, Major-Gen- 
eral W. S. Hancock hereby assumes command of the 
Fifth Military District and of the department com- 
posed of the States of Louisiana and Texas. 

" H. The general commanding is gratified to 
learn that peace and quiet reign in this department. 
It will be his purpose to preserve this condition of 
things. As a means to this great end he requires 
the maintenance of the civil authorities and the 
faithful execution of the laws as the most efficient 
under existing circumstances. 

" In war it is indispensable to repel force by 
force, to overthrow and destroy opposition to law- 
ful authority ; but when insurrectionary force has 
been overthrown and peace established, and the 
civil authorities are ready and willing to perform 
their duties, the military power should cease to lead 
and the civil administration resume its natural and 
rightful dominion. Solemnly impressed with these 
views, the general announces that the great prin- 
ciples of American liberty are still the inheritance 



298 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

of this people, and ever should be. The right of 
trial by jury, the habeas corpus, the liberty of the 
press, the freedom of speech, the natural rights of 
persons, and the rights of property must be pre- 
served. 

"Free institutions, while they are essential to 
the prosperity and happmess of the people, always 
furnish the strongest inducements to peace and 
order. Crimes and offenses committed in this dis- 
trict must be left to the consideration and judgment 
of the regular civil tribunals, and those tribunals 
will be supported in their lawful jurisdiction. 

"Should there be violations of existing laws 
which are not inquired into by the civil magistrates, 
or should failures in the administration of justice be 
complained of, the cases will be reported to these 
headquarters, when such orders may be made as may 
be deemed necessary. 

"While the general thus indicates his purpose to 
respect the liberties of the people, he wishes all to 
understand that armed insurrection or forcible re- 
sistance to the law will be instantly suppressed by 
arms." 

After telling the story of so many battles, as has 
been done in this volume, it will not be necessary to 
fight over again here the Battle of Reconstruction. 
In the situation existing in 1866 and 1867 it was in- 
evitable that widely different views should be held 



AFTER THE WAR. 



299 



by equally intelligent and patriotic men as to the 
proper method of treating communities composed of 
those who had lately been in rebellion. The two 
policies of generosity and trustfulness on the one 
hand, of distrust and repression on the other, were 
certain to find adherents, each in great numbers, 
among those who had been perfectly united and 
agreed so long as a single soldier of the Confederacy 
remained in arms. Nor was the line of separation 
between the two parties to this question drawn 
solely according to temperament, character, and pre- 
vailing bent of mind. Personal ambitions, political 
affiliations, accidents as to the point of view or as 
to individual observation or experience, the influ- 
ence of recognized leaders of public opinion — all 
these would surely enter to affect the adhesion of 
citizens to one or the other of the two policies of 
reconstruction, so that men of the meanest and 
most grudging nature should be found among the 
advocates of generosity and trustfulness in the treat- 
ment of the South ; while, on the other hand, men 
whose whole lives had been but an expression of 
tolerance, charity, and benignity should be earnest 
in holding that rashly to restore the lately insurgent 
communities to their former political privileges and 
to intrust them at once with the self-control which 
is taken for granted by our form of government, 
would be alike to endanger the Union and betray 
the helpless freedmen. 



300 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



Moreover, it was a matter of moral certainty 
that either policy, so far as it should be tried would 
in some degree be disappointing to its friends and 
would, on some occasion at least, give its opponents 
the opportunity to point the finger of scorn. The 
policy of generosity and trust surely would, sooner 
or later, there if not here, meet with ingratitude 
" more strong than traitors' arms " ; while, on the 
other hand, those who held by the policy of repres- 
sion would at times be startled to find how empty 
of all restorative and reparative virtue were the 
measures in which they had delighted ; how com- 
pletely it was true that the malignant elements they 
had kept under lock and key were still in undi- 
minished vigor, never to yield the smallest fraction 
of their deadly potency save under the beneficent 
chemistry of free institutions, personal rights, and 
equal laws. 

The difficult situation of 1866 and 1867 was pro- 
foundly complicated by the obtrusion of several 
strong, rank, highly offensive personalities. Some 
of these belonged to men who during the long 
struggle with the slave power had borne themselves 
heroically, but who, when the institution of slavery 
rushed to its downfall, were found painfully or even 
ludicrously unfit to deal with questions of readjust- 
ment or reconstruction. Their stubborn tempers, 
their aggressive dispositions, their fearless cour- 
age had made them leaders and champions in the 



AFTER THE WAR. 



301 



"martyr age," while twenty years of conflict had 
developed those qualities to the absorption of every 
other possibility of their original natures. Their 
minds had even ceased to work on other questions 
than those of human rights. Yet it was these men 
who held in their hands the decision of the nicest 
question to which statesmanship can ever address 
itself — the treatment of enemies or conquered rebels. 
Moreover, Renegadism entered upon both sides to 
give its own peculiar bitterness to the controversy 
over the processes of reconstruction. 

It was in such a situation that Hancock found 
himself placed in command of the Fifth Military 
District, holding in his hands almost the power of 
life and death over a large population. To a man 
of his nature and training there was but one course 
open. A Democrat by birth and breeding ; a strict 
constructionist in his view of the Constitution; a 
thorough believer in the honor, good feeling, and 
essential patriotism of the Southern people, whom 
he knew well, among whom he had married, whose 
representatives had been his schoolmates, his com- 
rades, and his most intimate friends through life — 
he could not be the willing agent, and he would not 
become the tool, of those who, having broken with 
President Johnson, were seeking to carry the nation 
into courses of severe repression toward the late in- 
surrectionary States. If one were disposed to argue 
the question, it would be not unfair to point to the 



302 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



course of subsequent events as showing that Han- 
cock was right in his view of the way to restore the 
true union of the States, and that this way might have 
been even better taken in 1868 than in 1876. But I 
have no interest in advancing the proposition that 
the gallant general was a great statesman, or had 
peculiarly perspicacious views of large public poli- 
cies. I only desire to vindicate his thorough sin- 
cerity and his patriotic feeling in taking the course 
he did in Louisiana and Texas. 

In pursuance of principles announced in General 
Order No. 40, General Hancock consistently, during 
the few months of his rule in New Orleans, con- 
tinued to discountenance trials by military commis- 
sions instead of the properly constituted courts, 
and to diminish those appeals to the power of the 
United States which, throughout large portions of 
the South, had become almost the normal method 
of government, whether for the prosecution of the 
largest public enterprises or for the pursuit of the 
pettiest private interests. Many pages might be 
filled with extracts from his orders, reports, and 
correspondence, written vigorously and clearly in 
the vein he had first taken upon assuming com- 
mand ; but I will not protract this story by intro- 
ducing them here. Suffice it to say that his course 
met with the severest condemnation of the radical 
faction at Washington, a bill being actually brought 
into Congress to reduce the number of major gen- 



AFTER THE WAR. 



303 



erals in the army, with a view to throwing him out 
of the service. His actions were vehemently de- 
nounced in the pubHc press as due to poUtical 
ambition, and as in betrayal of the rights of the 
government and of the interest and the personal 
security of the freedmen and the loyal white citizens 
of Texas and Louisiana. 

Funding that his administration was not ap- 
proved by his superiors, and feeling his usefulness 
impaired by the constant opposition of the military 
Governors of the States in his district, and of agents 
of the government there and in Washington, Han- 
cock, on the 27th of February, 1868, requested to 
be relieved from his command and assigned to duty 
elsewhere. This was accordingly done on the i6th 
of March ; and on the 31st of that month he took 
command of the Division of the Atlantic, compris- 
ing three departments — namely, that of the Lakes, 
that of the East, and that of Washington. 

In the Democratic National Convention of 1868 
Hancock's name was presented as a candidate for 
the presidency. The Republicans had previously 
nominated General Grant for that office, and there 
were among the Democratic leaders some who 
thought that a soldier should be placed in opposi- 
tion. The number of candidates before the conven- 
tion was large, and Hancock at no time came near 
success, reaching his maximum on the eighteenth 
ballot. Governor Seymour, of New York, was final- 



304 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



ly chosen on the twenty-first ballot, with General 
Frank P. Blair, of Missouri, for vice-president. At 
this distance of time we may all agree to rejoice 
that Hancock was not put up against his old chief. 
On March 20, 1S69, a fortnight after Grant's inaugu- 
ration, he was sent to St. Paul to command the De- 
partment of Dakota. In November, 1872, General 
Meade died. Sheridan having become lieutenant 
general, this left Hancock the senior major general 
of the army. As such, he was transferred to the 
command of the Division of the Atlantic. 

On March 18, 1875, General Hancock sustained 
a fearful blow in the death of his only daughter, 
Ada, a beautiful girl just blossoming into woman- 
hood. One of the most affectionate of men, this 
loss came upon him with crushing force. Never 
afterward was he the same man. Alike the honors 
won and the ambitions still cherished sank into 
nothingness before this catastrophe. In December 
of that year he was made a member, with Generals 
Sherman and Terry, of the court of inquiry to 
investigate the charges against General Orville E. 
Babcock, private secretary to President Grant. 

During the winter of iS^S-'-jj the complications 
arising out of the disputed election to the presi- 
dency gave rise to mischievous newspaper rumors 
that General Hancock had been selected to lead 
the forces which should compel the inauguration 
of Mr. Samuel J. Tilden; and that, to get him out 



AFTER THE WAR. 



305 



of the way, he had been ordered to the Pacific 
coast but had refused to go. It is certain that 
in this exciting period, fraught with so much dan- 
ger to our institutions, there were not wanting hot- 
headed partisans who would have staked every- 
thing upon the accomplishment of their political 
purposes; but it is not less certain that the name 
of the gallant soldier was used without the slightest 
authority in the bombastic talk which preceded the 
formation of the Electoral Commission. General 
Hancock, with probably a majority of the American 
people, believed that Mr. Tilden had been elected, 
but no man would have more strongly opposed a 
resort to unlawful violence. During the great labor 
riots of 1877 Hancock moved his headquarters to 
Philadelphia to be near the scene of the troubles, 
and exhibited energy as well as prudence and fore- 
sight in dealing with the new emergencies which 
had developed in the life of the nation. 

As the presidential campaign of 1880 approached 
it became more and more probable that the nomina- 
tion of the Democratic party would fall to General 
Hancock. His splendid military career, his lifelong 
devotion to the constitutional views of that party, 
the record of his administration in Louisiana and 
Texas, his purity of character and dignity of bear- 
ing — all combined to make him a strong candidate, 
as seen before the fact. The Republican party had 
in May nominated General Garfield, better known 



3o6 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

through his civil than through his mihtary career; 
and the painful contest which would have resulted 
from the rivalry of Hancock and Grant, had the lat- 
ter been set up for a third term, was thus avoided. 
The Democratic Convention assembled at Cincin- 
nati in June. The two foremost candidates were 
Hancock and Bayard. Hancock led on the first bal- 
lot, but by no large interval. On the second ballot 
he carried all before him, and was declared unani- 
mously nominated. 

The platform of the Democratic party was, like 
the platforms of those days, Democratic and Repub- 
lican alike, made up of declarations intended for 
immediate effect, but not esteemed of the slightest 
binding force upon the declarants should they be 
placed in power. The one vital thing about it was 
the denunciation of the measures by which Mr. Til- 
den had been thrown out. This was hearty and sin- 
cere enough. The nominee's letter of acceptance 
was a good letter, not strong or great, but express- 
ive of loyal and patriotic purposes. That Han 
cock would have made a dignified, a gracious, a 
high-minded President no political opponent, proba- 
bly, would now deny. Perhaps it required the ad- 
ministration of Mr. Chester A. Arthur to teach the 
country how far the mere instincts and bearing of 
a gentleman will, by themselves, go in making the 
presidency respected and even successful. Although 
I did not vote for General Hancock, I am strongly 



AFTER THE WAR. 



307 



disposed to believe that one of the best things the 
nation has lost in recent years has been the example 
and the influence of that chivalric, stately, and splen- 
did gentleman in the White House. Perhaps much 
which both parties now recognize as having been 
unfortunate and mischievous during the past thir- 
teen years would have been avoided had General 
Hancock been elected. 

But, as a matter of fact, Hancock did not prove 
a particularly strong candidate before the country. 
His party had, at the time, no real issue to make 
with their opponents. The vital question with 
them, as with the other side, was really one of the 
spoils of office; and neither the qualities nor the 
career of the heroic soldier whom they had for 
effect nominated, were such as to create much polit- 
ical force in the campaign. The " workers " every- 
where exhibited apathy — Hancock was not of their 
kind. Some blunderhead, distorting a remark which 
the good general had made in a friendly talk about 
the tariff, brought a little ridicule upon his candida- 
ture ; but this, in fact, counted for nothing in the 
result. Garfield, with the prestige of five successive 
Republican victories and with the vast patronage 
of the general government behind him, carried the 
election by a small popular majority — a few thou- 
sands only — and by a majority of fifty-nine votes in 
the electoral college. 

His defeat Hancock bore with perfect dignity 



308 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



and unimpaired good nature. On the night of the 
election he went to bed without waiting for a single 
return, and first learned the news in the morning. 
His profession at least remained, and that protes- 
sion was one that absolutely suited him. His taste 
of politics had been bitter rather than sweet, and 
he was probably never less inclined to presidential 
aspirations than on November 3, 1880. He had 
borne himself throughout the campaign without loss 
of reputation. Not a word had anywhere, by any 
man, been spoken against his character. From being 
a candidate he turned himself easily to the duties 
of his high office, to the ever-fresh delights of army 
comradeship, and to the comforts of a home which 
was dearer to him by reason of the great and irrep- 
arable loss which had there been sustained. His 
staff were to him like brothers or like sons — Fry, 
Arnold, Perry, Mitchell. Every day brought its 
welcome duties and cares, for Hancock was al- 
ways full of business even if he had to make 
it. And there was such pleasure to a truly gen- 
erous soul like his in dispensing the hospitality of 
headquarters on Governor's Island, and in welcom- 
ing the hundreds of old comrades who came from 
far and near to see once more the commander and 
friend of the war times. 

And so Hancock — his blond locks grown gray, 
his youthful beauty faded under labors, griefs, and 
wounds, but more majestic than even in his palmy 



AFTER THE WAR. 



309 



days — was not an unhappy or a disappointed man. 
His only son had married, and grandchildren came 
to bring balm to the heart that had been so sorely 
bruised in the fair daughter's early death. With 
his superb physique and powerful constitution it 
seemed that he might long live to be one of the 
most conspicuous figures of the regenerated nation, 
and to lift the hearts of his surviving comrades at 
the recurring celebrations of peace, as he had so 
powerfully done on the march and in battle. But 
the wounds of the war* and those which had been 
dealt by domestic affliction had come nearer to the 
springs of life than any one imagined. And other 
blows were soon to fall upon that kind heart. 

On May 30, 18S3, General William G. Mitchell, 
who had been his aid as early as the battle of 
Williamsburg, and had served on his staff with 
more than the devotion of a son, with a love and 
a spirit of hero-worship rare to witness, died sud- 
denly at his headquarters. Only those who knew 
the tenderness of the relation between the younger 
man and his chief could understand the depths 
of that sorrow, the bereavement wrought by that 
loss. For twenty-one years, was any paper wanted, 
" Mitchell ! " had been the first call ; was a secret to 
be reposed anywhere, that faithful bosom received 

* Even so late as the Dyer Court of Inquiry, in i86g, Han- 
coclc's Gettysburg wound for a time disabled him, and required 
him to seek temporary relief from his duties. 



310 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



and kept it as faithfully as the grave; was any one 
to be sent upon service, any letter to be written, any 
stranger to be received and taken care of, any de- 
tail of duty attended to, any omission repaired, any 
blunder rectified, any one to be praised or thanked 
or scolded, " Mitchell " had been the thought and 
" Mitchell ! " had been the cry. Let no one imagine 
that the officer who had been thus near to Hancock 
was merely one of those staff officers — not unknown 
to the army — whose claim to retention lies in their 
personal serviceableness, and who are little bet- 
ter than flunkies and valets around headquarters. 
When I look back and recall the many scores of 
staff officers whom I knew well between 1861 and 
1865, I can not think of one who was so perfectly 
the beau-ideal of the "riding staff" as William G. 
Mitchell. Fearless and gallant in bearing, an ad- 
mirable horseman, keen, quick, and discriminating 
in his observation of the field and of the fortunes of 
the fight, penetrating in his study of men, yet al- 
ways courteous, judicious, and conciliatory in his 
conduct, Mitchell was throughout the war an in- 
valuable aid, and at its close was as well equipped 
and as competent for the command of a brigade or 
a division as almost any officer in the service. But 
his one thought was to be of use to "the General," 
who had picked him out — a young lieutenant of 
the Forty-ninth Pennsylvania — in his first winter of 
service, and who had been more than a father to 



AFTER THE WAR. 



311 



him. The confidence between the two was com- 
plete, the affection inexpressible. 

Yet still another "insupportable and touching 
loss" befell Hancock when, in December, 1884, his 
only son, Russell, an amiable and courteous young 
gentleman, died in Mississippi after a brief illness, 
leaving three little children. These successive 
losses told powerfully on the constitution of the 
gallant general. He still kept his interest in his 
military duties; still busied himself in arranging 
his war papers; still wrote countless long letters 
to those who from every part of the country con- 
sulted him on points relating to the campaigns of 
the Army of the Potomac ; still entertained all 
comers at Governor's Island with his usual hospi- 
tality. But the reserved strength of his once pow- 
erful nature was completely exhausted; the tide of 
life was running swiftly out ; a mortal disease — 
that one which is the most usual result of care and 
sorrow — had begun to work within him. 

In March of 1885, as commander of the Military 
Division of the Atlantic, he attended the inaugura- 
tion of President Cleveland, as, in 1881, he had at- 
tended that of his competitor, Garfield. In the sum- 
mer of that year he made his last conspicuous public 
appearance, as the commander of the mighty column 
which for hours poured through the streets of New 
York to testify the nation's gratitude to the great 
chieftain who had brought the rebellion to an end. 



312 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



Hundreds of thousands of Americans then for the 
first time saw, and looked with admiration and de- 
light upon, the splendid soldier whose name had so 
long been a synonym of dauntless valor, martial 
enthusiasm, and prowess in battle. To the eye of 
the spectator he was still the superb Hancock. 

Among the last expeditions of his active life was 
that which he made, with several officers of his for- 
mer staff and with other personal friends, to the 
field of Gettysburg in November of 1S85, at the 
request of Colonel Batchelder, for the purpose of 
identifymg certain positions which had long been in 
dispute, and of explaining upon the ground certain 
tactical manoeuvres of the second and third days. 
Hancock had not visited Gettysburg since the bat- 
tle except once when, just after the war, he went 
up from Baltimore with a party which comprised 
his young daughter. For some time he had mani- 
fested great interest in the approaching expedition, 
and had written many letters to obtain the material 
to make this visit to the battlefield as conclusive as 
possible. The expedition was successfully accom- 
plished. The scene, the presence of those who had 
been with him in the action, the flood of reminis- 
cences called forth as he passed from point to point, 
from Gulp's Hill to the place where he had fallen 
from his horse among the soldiers of the Vermont 
brigade — all combined to raise his mind, to evoke 
the very spirit of those memorable days, and to fill 



AFTER THE WAR. 



313 



him with something like the stern joy with which 
he stood in his place on the afternoon of July third, 
and watched Longstreet's column move down Semi- 
nary Ridge on its great enterprise. 

Returning to Governor's Island after this brief 
absence, he busied himself with his daily duties, 
having probably no premonition that the end was 
near. But the tide was now well out. In the early 
days of February, immediately after a trip with 
General Franklin to Washington, he was struck 
down, never to rise again. On the 9th of that 
month the knightly gentleman fell away. He had 
been true in every relation of life; loyal to the 
nation and its laws; brave among the bravest; hon- 
orable beyond reproach ; faithful to his lights and 
his privileges. He had served his country well, and 
he had received nearly its highest honors. 

It must, I think, be a source of regret to all 
thoughtful and fair-minded Americans that when 
Sherman, in February, 1884, retired by reason of 
age from the high ofifice of general of all the armies 
of the United States, Sheridan was not advanced to 
that position and Hancock made lieutenant general. 
The wrong was righted, so far as Sheridan was con- 
cerned, while that heroic soldier lay in the very 
grasp of death. A repentant Congress, then first 
appreciating its error, hurried through both branches 
a bill providing for his promotion to the grade of 
general ; and the parchment, with the President's 



314 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



signature still wet, was placed in his dying hand, 
which had just strength enough to close upon it. 
But it was then too late to correct the omission in 
the case of the illustrious commander of the Second 
Corps. Hancock's fame does not need this testi- 
mony. The story of Williamsburg and Fredericks- 
burg, of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg, of the 
Wilderness and the Salient at Spottsylvania, can 
never be told to the youth of America through all 
the coming ages and his name be left out. Yet, for 
the honor of the republic, it would have been better 
had not political and personal prejudices stood in 
the way of this act of simple justice. 

General Hancock's interment took place at Nor- 
ristown, his childhood home, on February 13, 1S86, 
where he was laid beside his father in the family 
tomb. The remains were escorted from Governor's 
Island to Norristown by a distinguished group of his 
former comrades and associates in arms, compris- 
ing Generals Sherman, Sheridan, Schofield, Franklin, 
Fry, Miles, and many others. The gathering around 
the grave of thousands of Hancock's fellow-citizens 
and old soldiers was impressive in the extreme. The 
salute was fired by a detachment of Light Battery F, 
Fifth United States Artillery; and when the famous 
bugler of the Fifth, from a little prominence in the 
cemetery, sounded "taps" — the soldier's good night ! 
lights out ! to sleep ! — tears filled many an eye long 
unused to weep. 



AFTER THE WAR. 



315 



Upon General Hancock's death a popular sub- 
scription was made, which resulted in the investment 
of a fund of about fifty-five thousand dollars for the 
benefit of Mrs. Hancock. In addition to this, friends 
presented to her a handsome house in Washington, 
at a cost of twenty-two thousand dollars. There 
Mrs. Hancock resided, when not visiting relatives in 
New York city or Yonkers, until she went, in 1891, to 
Dresden, where she spent nearly a year. After her 
return from Europe, in the fall of 1892, she made 
her home with Captain and Mrs. Eugene Griffin, the 
former long an officer on the general's staff, the 
latter his niece and adopted daughter. There, in 
Gramercy Park, New York, she died, after a pro- 
tracted illness, on April 20, 1893. Mrs. Hancock 
prepared and published, in 1887, a loving tribute to 
her husband's memory, entitled Reminiscences of 
Winfield Scott Hancock, by his Wife, containing many 
of the addresses delivered at the memorial meeting 
held at Governor's Island by the Military Service 
Institution, soon after the gallant soldier's death. 
It has been stated that General and Mrs. Hancock's 
daughter, Ada, died at seventeen, and that their son 
followed her in 1884. Russell Hancock left a widow 
and three children — Ada, Gwyn, and Almira — who 
all survive at this writing. The son was, in June, 
1894, admitted to the United States Military Acad- 
emy at West Point. 

Visible memorials of General Hancock will not 



3l6 GENERAL HANCOCK. 

be wanting to continually refresh the remembrance 
of his deeds and to exhibit to coming generations 
of Americans his goodly presence and gallant bear- 
ing. His bust, presented by the comrades of Han- 
cock Post, Department of New York, G. A. R., was, 
in 1893, placed in Hancock Square, New York city. 
General Horace Porter making the dedicatory ad- 
dress. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has tes- 
tified her admiration for her own heroic son, and her 
gratitude for the great part he performed in deliver- 
ing her from the grasp of the invader by providing 
for the erection on East Cemetery Hill, Gettysburg, 
of an equestrian statue. Tlie work, by the sculptor 
Elwell, now being cast in bronze, is a noble presen- 
tation of the figure, face, and spirit of the impetuous 
and resolute commander. It will fitly crown the emi- 
nence upon which he appeared in the mid-afternoon 
of July I, 1S63, to stay the flight of our broken army 
and bring the mspiration of coming victory. 

While city and State have thus raised monuments 
to the departed chieftain, the nation has not been 
unmindful of his services. By acts of March 3, 
1889, and March 31, 1891, Congress made an appro- 
priation for an equestrian statue in Pennsylvania 
Avenue, Washington city, whither he came in Sep- 
tember, 1861, to take his part in the great struggle; 
in front of which he organized the brigade he was 
to lead so gloriously to victory at Williamsburg; 
over the safety of which he watched durmg the dark 



AFTER THE WAR. 



317 



days of Lincoln's assassination; in which he attend- 
ed the inauguration of his competitor for the presi- 
dency ; and where through many years his splendid 
presence became familiar to men of all sections of 
the country he had so loyally aided to save. 



INDEX. 



AcQUiA Creek (the Potomac), 

58. 
Allen's Farm (the Peninsula), 49. 
Anderson, General Robert, 36. 
Anderson, General R. H., 81, 

87, 125, 128, 168, 179. 
Antietam, 46-52. 
Armistead, General L. A., ig, 

142, 144. 
Army of the Potomac, of the 

James, of Northern Virginia, 

passim. 
Arnold, General Richard, 308. 
Arnold, Captain W. A., 141, 

189, 190. 
Arthur, President, 306. 
Artillery, Hancock's relation to, 

30, 140. 
Auburn, battle of, 149. 
Avery House (Petersburg), 238. 
Ayres, General R. B., 124. 

Babcock, General O. E., 304. 
Badeau, General Adam, 166 n, 

232 n, 283. 
Bailey's Creek (James River), 

248-249, 255-256. 
Baird, Lieutenant-Colonel W. 

H., 239. 
Balloch, Captain George W., 59. 



Baltimore Pike (Gettysburg), 
iio-iii, 120, 131. 

Banks's Ford (the Rappahan- 
nock), 76, 92. 

Barlow, General Francis C, 
Antietam, 50-51 ; Wilderness, 
155, 164-166, 172-174, 176; 
Spottsylvania, 187-188, 190; 
the Salient 196-199, 206 ; 
North Anna and the Toto- 
potomoy, 211, 214-215 ; Cold 
Harbor, 220-221 ; Petersburg, 
234, 237-238, 241 ; Deep Bot- 
tom, 249, 256 ; Reams's Sta- 
tion, 260. 

Barnes, General James, 124. 

Batchelder, Colonel J. B., 312. 

Batchelder, General R. N., 40, 

lOI. 

Bates, Lieutenant-Colonel W. 

W., 241. 
Bayard, Hon. Thomas F., 306. 
Beaver, General James A., 239, 

267. 
Benedict, Colonel, 143. 
Bethesda Church, 214. 
Bingham, General H. H., 40, 

72, lOI. 
Birney, General D. B., 155 ; 

Wilderness, 163-165,170-175, 



120 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



177, 181 ; Spottsylvania, 183 ; 
the Salient, 196-198, 204, 207 ; 
North Anna and the Toto- 
potomoy, 2IO-2H, 214-215 ; 
Cold Harbor, 221, 224; Pe- 
tersburg, 234, 237, 238, 240- 

245. 255. 

Block House bridge (Po River), 
186-187. 

Bolivar Heights (Harper's Fer- 
ry), 53- 

Boydton Plank Road (Peters- 
burg), chapter xix. 

Brewster, Colonel William R., 

155- 

Bridger, Fort, Hancock rejoins 
his regiment at, 23. 

Bristoe Station, 150. 

Broady, Lieutenant-Colonel K. 
O., 272. 

Brock Road (the Wilderness), 
163-165, 173, 176-180. 

Bvockenborough, Colonel, 142. 

Brooke, General John R., An- 
tietam, 50 ; Gettysburg, loi, 
155 ; Wilderness, 165 ; Spott- 
sylvania, 187-188 ; the Sali- 
ent, 196-197, 199 ; the Toto- 
potomoy, 214-215 ; Cold Har- 
bor, 220-221. 

Brower, Lieutenant, 273. 

Brown House (Spottsylvania), 
ig6, 202. 

Brow^n, General Harvey L., 188- 
190, 196. 

Brown, Colonel T. Fred, com- 
manding battery, 128, 267, 
271. 

Brownson, Captain Edward B., 
40, loi, 276. 



Buckner, General S. B., 12. 

Buford, General John, 103-104, 
no. 

Bull, Major S. O., loi. 

Bullock Clearing (Chancellors- 
ville), 86, 88, 90-91. 

Burgess's Mill (Hatcher's Run), 
281-282, 2S7. 

Burnside, General A. E., 14 ; 
Antietam, 52 ; Fredericks- 
burg, 57-58, 60-64, 68, 71 ; 
Wilderness, 159, 162, 168, 
174-175. 17S ; the Salient, 
206 ; the Mine, 253-254. 

Butler, General B. F., 151, 217, 
230, 232, 247. 

Butterfield, General Daniel, 68, 
107. 

Byrnes, Colonel Richard, 220- 
221. 

Caldwell, General John C, Mal- 
vern Hill, 49; Fredericksburg, 
59, 66 ; Chancellorsville, 89 ; 
Gettysburg, 100, 124, 136. 

Carr, General Joseph B., 155. 

Carroll, General S. S., Chancel- 
lorsville, 88 ; Gettysburg, loi, 
13O1 155 ; W'ilderness, 166, 
170, 177, 180; Spottsylvania, 
190 ; the Salient, 199, 203 

Catharpin Road (the Wilder- 
ness), 165, 185-1S6. 

Catherine Furnaces (W^ilder- 
ness), 163. 

Cavalry, Hancock's relation to, 
30. 

Cemetery Hill (Gettysburg\ 
109-111, 119-121, 129-130, 
134, 141-142. 



INDEX. 



321 



Cemetery Ridge (Gettysburg), 
119, 121, 134-144. 

Chancellorsville, 72, chapter v ; 
158-159, 162. 

Chapin's Farm (James River), 
247-248. 

Chaplin, Colonel Daniel, 258. 

Charlestown, Va., 53. 

Chesterfield, Va., 210. 

Chickahominy River, 44, 49, 
218, 219. 

Churubusco (Mexico), Hancock 
engaged at, 19-20. 

Cincinnati, Hancock on duty 
in, 18. 

City Point, 217, 231-232. 

Clark, General N. S., 21. 

Cold Harbor, 215, 217 et seq., 
230. 

Comstock, General C. B., 195- 
196. 

Contreras (Mexico), Hancock 
engaged at, 20. 

Coons, Colonel John, 203. 

Corbin's Bridge (Po River), 185. 

Couch, General D. N., at West 
Point, II ; Malvern Hill, 49 ; 
takes command of Second 
Corps, 53 ; Fredericksburg, 
55, 64 ; Chancellorsville, 74, 
77, 82, 87, 89-90, 92-93 ; re- 
linquishes command of Sec- 
ond Corps, 93-94. 

Cowan, Captain, commanding 
battery, 141. 

Craig, Colonel C. A., 258 

Crampton's Pass (South xMoun- 
tain), 46. 

Crawford, Fort, Hancock on 
duty at, 20. 



Crawford, General S. W., Get- 
tysburg, 129; Reams's Station, 
278 ; Boydton Road, 2S1-282, 
284, 287. 

Cross, Colonel Edward E., 50, 
100, 126, 145. 

Cub Dam Creek (Williamsburg), 
41. 

Gulp's Hill (Gettysburg), iio- 
112, 120-121. 

Gushing, Capta.in Alonzo H., 
141, 142. 

Culler, General L., 175. 

Dauchey, Lieutenant G.K., com- 
manding battery, 271-274. 

Davidson, General John W., 11, 
41. 

Deep Bottom (James River), 
expeditions, chapter xvii. 

Deep Creek (James River), 256. 

Democratic party, Hancock's 
affiliations with, 9-10, 14-15, 
296-303, 305. 

Devens, General Charles, 144 n. 

Devereux, Colonel A. L., 143. 

Devil's Den (Gettysburg), 123- 
124, 126. 

Donahue, Lieutenant Thomas, 
89. 

Doubleday, General Abner, 106, 
116-118, 129, 136. 

Dougherty, Surgeon A. N., loi, 
144. 

Dowdall's Tavern (Chancellors- 
ville), 78-79, 81-83. 

Dunker Church (Antietam), 46. 

Dyer Court of Inquiry, 309 n. 

Early, General Jubal A., Wil- 
liamsburg, 38, 41-42 ; Gettys- 



^-- 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



burg, 134 ; Spottsylvania, 185- 
186, 255. 

Egan, General Thomas W., 
North Anna, 211 ; Petersburg, 
238 ; Boydton road, 281, 286. 

Ely's Ford (the Rapidan), 74, 
158, 162. 

Emmittsburg road (Gettysburg), 
120-121, 125. 

Ewell, General B. S., Gettys- 
burg, iio-iii, 113, 129 ; Mine 
Run, 150 ; Wilderness, 163- 
164, 167, i6g, 170; the Sali- 
ent, ig5, 207-209. 

Fair Oaks, battle of, 48, 50, 156. 

Falmouth, Va., 58-59. 

Farmville, battle of, 51, 274. 

Field, General C. W., 176. 

Five Forks, battle of, 293. 

Frank, Colonel Paul, 155, 165, 
176. 

Franklin, General W. B., at 
West Point, 11 ; Antietam, 
45 46, 49 ; Fredericksburg, 
61-63, 313. 

Fredericksburg, 30, 59, 72 ; 
battle of, chapter iv, 74-75, 
157 ; pike, 76, 79, 81, 314. 

French, General William H., 
Gaines's Mill, 49 ; Fredericks- 
burg, 64, 66 ; Chancellorsville, 
87-88 ; Harper's Ferry, 98. 

Fry, General James B., 11, 30S. 

Fussell's Mills (James River), 
249, 256. 

Garfield, President, 305, 307. 
Garnett's Farm (the Chicka- 
hominy), 44. 



Geary, General J. W., 89-90, 114. 

Germanna Ford (tlie Rapidan), 
74, 158. 

Getty, General George W., 164- 
165, 168, 170. 

Gettysburg, battle of, 30, 161- 
162, 181-182, 314, chapters 
vi— viii. 

Gibbon, General John, Chancel- 
lorsville, 74, 85 ; Gettysburg, 
loi, IC7-108, 128, 131, 135, 
141, 144, 146, 149, 155, 161 ; 
Wilderness, 165-166,170,172- 
174 ; Spottsylvania, 192 ; the 
Salient, 205-206 ; North Anna 
and Totopjtomoy, 211-212, 
214, 216 ; Cold Harbor, 220- 
221 ; 225 ; Petersburg, 234, 
237, 239, 241 ; recommended 
by Grant for command of Sec- 
ond Corps, 245 ; Deep Bot- 
tom, 25b ; Reams's Station, 
260, 262, 267, 274. 

Glady Run (Po River), 1 86-1 88. 

Glendale, battle of, 156. 

Golding's house (Chickahom- 

iny), 45- 

Gordon, General John B., 195, 
199, 20S. 

Gordonsville, 80, 8g. 

Grant, General U. S., at West 
Point, 11-14 ; appointed lieu- 
tenant general, 152 ; Wilder- 
ness, 158-159, 162, 168, 169 ; 
Spottsylvania, 1S3-1S6 ; the 
Salient, 194-196 ; North An- 
na and Totopotomoy, 209, 213, 
215 ; Cold Harbor, 217, 219, 
226 ; Petersburg, 230-231 ; re- 
ply to Hancock's application 



INDEX. 



323 



for a court of inquiry, 235 ; 
recommends Hancock as com- 
mander of the Army of the 
Potomac, 245 ; change of 
plans, 246 ; Deep Bottom, 
248-249 ; telegraphs Secre- 
tary Stanton regarding Han- 
cock's promotion, 254-256 ; j 
Boydton road, 281-283, 288- 
289 ; Five Forks, 293 ; Ap- 
pomattox, 294, 303. 

Greene, General George S., 130. 

Gregg, General David M., 30- 
31, 255, 257, 260, 262, 264, 
273-274, 279, 281-282, 287. 

Griffin, Captain Eugene, 315. 

Guinea Station, Va., 209. 

Gurley House (Petersburg), 260. 

Halifax Road, 263-265, 273. 

Hall, Colonel N. J., 105. 

Halleck, General H. W., 58. 

Hampton, General Wade, 266- 
267, 270. 

Hancock, Major John, 37 n, 59. 

Hancock, General Winfield 
Scott, birth and education, 
chapter i ; graduated from 
West Point and Lrevetted 
second lieutenant, 17 ; serv- 
ice in Mexico, 18-20 ; mar- 
riage, 21-22 ; service in Flori- 
da, 22 ; ordered to California, 
23-4 ; to the seat of war, 
i85i, 36 ; appointed brigadier 
general of volunteers, 37 ; 
his qualifications for service, 
28-40 ; battle of Williams- 
burg, 41-43 ; Seven Days' 
Battles, 44-45 ; assumes com- 



mand of division on battle- 
field of Antielam, 47-48 ; 
Harper's Ferry, 53 ; march 
along Blue Ridge, 55 ; Fred- 
ericksburg, 59-72 ; Chancel- 
lorsville, chapter v ; assumes 
command of Second Corps, 
94 ; Gettysburg, chapters vi- 
viii ; in command of field, 
July 1st, 106-107 i relations to 
General Howard, 114-118 ; 
wounded, 143-145 ; returns 
to corps, 151 ; in the Wilder- 
ness, chapters x-xi ; at Spott- 
sylvania, chapter xii ; at the 
Salient, chapter xiii ; at Cold 
Harbor, chapter xiv ; march 
to Petersburg, 231-235 ; re- 
quests court of inquiry, 235 ; 
before Petersburg, 237-242 ; 
presides over court of inquiiy 
on Burnside's Mine, 254 ; ap- 
pointed brigadier general in 
regular army, 254 ; at Deep 
Bottom, 247-258 ; at Reams's 
Station, 260-278 ; at Boydton 
road, 279-288 ; obtains leave 
of absence, 288-289 ; relin- 
quishes command of Second 
Corps, 290 ; appointed to 
raise and command veteran 
corps, 289-291 ; assumes com- 
mand of Middle Military 
Division, 292 ; ordered to 
Washington on President 
Lincoln's assassination, 295 ; 
appointed major general in 
regular a;my, 296 ; ordered 
to Fort Leavenworth, 296 ; 
Lidian war, 296 ; ordered 



324 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



to New Orleans, 296 ; Gen- 
eral Orders No. 40, 297- 
29S ; takes command of the 
Division of the Atlantic, 303 ; 
candidate for nomination for 
the presidency in 1868, 303 ; 
death of Ada Hancock, 304 ; 
nominated in 1880 by Demo- 
cratic Convention, 306 ; do- 
mestic and ofificial life at Gov- 
ernor's Island, 308 ; death of 
Russell Hancock, 311 ; at 
Grant's funeral, 311 ; revisits 
Gettysburg, 312 ; illness and 
death, 313 ; interment at 
Norristown, 314 ; his family, 
315 ; public memorials, 316. 

Hancock, Mrs. marriage, 21— 
22 ; life at Fort Myers, 22, 
34-35 ; accompanies General 
Hancock to California, 24 ; 
her reminiscences of her hus- 
band, 34, 315 ; her death, 315. 

Hanover Junction, 210. 

Hanover town, 212-213. 

Hare House (Petersburg), 238- 
239, 241. 

Harney, General W. S., 22. 

Harper's Ferry, 52-53, 98. 

Harrison's Creek (Appomattox 
River), 232-233. 

Harrison House (Spottsylvania), 
195, 203. 

Flarrow, General William, lOl. 

Haskell, Colonel F. A., 144, 222. 

Hatcher's Run, 279-281, 2?4, 
288. 

Hays, General Alexander, at 
West Point, 12; his brigade 
joins Second Corps, 97 ; Get- 



tysburg, 126, 135, 141-144, 
146 ; Morton's Ford, 151 ; 
Wilderness, 180-181. 

Hays, General H. T., 129 

Hays, General William, 149. 

Hazard, General John G., lOl. 

Heintzelman, General S. P., 41, 
44. 

Heth, General H., Gettysburg, 
103 ; Spottsylvania, 188 ; 
Reams's Station, 268 - 269, 
271 ; Boydton road, 284-287, 

Hill, General A. P., 35 ; Gettys- 
burg, no, 125, 128-129, 150; 
Wilderness, 164-170, 172 ; 
North AnjTa, 211 ; Reams's 
Station, 266, 26:;. 

Hill, General D. H., 38, 41-42. 

Hoke, General B. F., 129 

Hood, General J. B.. 123. 

Hooker, Colonel G. W., 143. 

Hooker, General Joseph, 14, 70, 
153 ; takes command of Army 
of the Potomac, 73 ; Chanccl- 
lorsville, 73-80, 84-86, 91-93, 
96 ; relieved from command, 
98. 

Hospitality a trait of Han- 
cock's character, 34-36. 

Howard, General O. O., Fred- 
ericksburg, 62, 68 ; Chancel- 
lorsville, 74, 78-81, 85-86, 
92 ; Gettysburg, 104, 106, 
loS, 114-118, 130-131, 180. 

Hoyt, Colonel C. H., 59. 

Humphreys, General Andrew 
A , 30 ; Fredericksburg, 68 ; 
Chancellorsville, 76 ; Gettys- 
burg, 123, 126-127 ; Wilder- 
ness, 156, 159, 162, 167-168; 



INDEX. 



325 



Spottsylvania, 191-192 ; esti- 
mate of losses, 208 ; Peters- 
burg, 230 ; takes command of 
Second Corps, 290. 

Hunt, General H.J., 140 n, 144, 
156. 

Huston, Lieutenant-Colonel J. 
W., 128, 145. 

Jackson, General T. J., 14 ; 
Gaines's Mill, 44 ; Fredericks- 
burg, 61-63 ; Chancellorsville, 
78-83, 86, 179. 

Jenkins, General M., 179. 

Jerusalem plank road (Peters- 
burg), 242, 265. 

Johnson, General Edward, iq, 
130, 133, 197. 

Kautz, General A. V., 233, 251. 

Kearney, General Philip, 153. 

Kelly, Colonel Patrick, 67, loi, 
239 

Kelly's Ford (Rappahannock 
River), 74. 

Kemper, General J. L., 142. 

Kershaw, General J. B., Wilder- 
ness, 171 - 172, 175 - 176 ; 
North Anna, 211 ; Deep Bot- 
tom, 248. 

Keyes, General E. D., 40-41, 44. 

Kirby, General Edmund, 90. 

Kitching, Colonel I. H., com- 
manding brigade, 207. 

Lacy House (Fredericksburg), 

61. 
Lamar, Colonel L. Q. C, 45 n. 
Landron House (Spottsylvania), 

191, 195-197- 
Lane, General J. H., 140, 142. 



Earned, Fort, 296. 
Leavenworth, Fort, 296. 
Lee, General Robert E., Fred- 
ericksburg, 57-58, 61, 63 ; 
Chancellorsville, 74-75, 78- 
80, 85-86, 91, 95 ; Gettys- 
burg, 104, 113, 119, 131, 134, 
138 ; Wilderness, 158, 160, 
162, 169, 175, 179 ; Spottsyl- 
vania, 183-184, 186 - 187 ; 
North Anna and Totopolo- 
moy, 210 -211, 213; Cold 
Harbor, 226-227 ; deceived 
by Grant's strategy, 230-231 ; 
Hancock's Deep Bottom ex- 
pedition, 249 ; the Boydton 
Road expedition, 282-2S3 ; 
Appomattox, 293-294 
Lepine, Lieutenant, command- 
ing battery, 89, 91. 
Lincoln, President, 245, 289, 

295. 
Livermore, Colonel Thomas L., 

40, loi. 
Lockwood, General H. H., 129. 
Long Bridge, the Chickahominy, 

230-231. 
Longstreet, General James, 
Mexico, 19, 20 ; Williams- 
burg, 41-42 ; Fredericksburg, 
62, 65 ; Gettysburg, 122, 129, 
135, 138, 140-141, 162 ; Wil- 
derness, 168-170, 172, 174-175, 
179 ; Spottsylvania, 183, 192. 
Loudon Heights (Harper's 

Ferry), 54. 
Lynch, General James C, 248, 

272. 
Lynchburg, Hancock's proposed 
advance upon, in 1S65, 292. 



326 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



McAllister, General Robert, 199. 

McClelian, General George B., 
II, 14, 43, 53, 57, 227. 

McCool House (Spottsylvania), 
195, 200. 

McCune, Captain Alexander, 
226. 

McDougall, General C. D., 220. 

McEntee, Lieutenant Charles 
S., 37 n. 

McGilvray, Lieutenant-Colonel 
F., commanding artillery bri- 
gade, 129. 

McGowan, General S., 140, 
201 n. 

McKeen, Colonel H. Boyd, 50, 
221-222. 

McKnight, Captain, command- 
ing battery, 243. 

McLaws, General L., Chancel- 
lorsville, 81, S6-87 ; Gettys- 
burg, 123. 

McMahon, General Martin T., 
222. 

Macy, Colonel George N., 256. 

Magruder, Fort (Williamsburg), 
41. 

Mahone,General William, Spott- 
sylvania, 185 ; the Salient, 
igg ; Petersburg, 244 n, 269. 

Mallon. Colonel J. E., 143. 

Malvern Hills, battle of, 49, 156. 

Marye's Heights (Fredericks- 
burg), 64-67, 6g, 100. 

Mattapony River, 2og. 

Meade, General George G., 30 ; 
Chancellorsville, 74-76, 87, 
91, 92 ; assumes command of 
Army of the Potomac, 98 ; 
Gettysburg, 99, 103-105, 107, 



108, 113, 116, 121, 122, 129- 
131 ; Mine Run, 150 ; i-eor- 
ganization, 153 ; the great re- 
view, 156, X57 ; Wilderness, 
16S, i6g ; Spottsylvania, 185- 
187, igo ; the Salient, 194, 
195, 201, 206, 207 ; North 
Anna and Totopotomoy, 210, 
214; Cold Harbor, 218, 2ig, 
223 ; Petersburg, 232, 235, 
23g, 241-243 ; Reams's Sta- 
tion, 261, 264, 266, 268, 277, 
27S ; Boydton road, 281, 282, 
287, 28g, 2go, 2g2 ; death of 
General Meade, 304. 

Meagher, General Thomas F., 
Antietam, 4g ; Fredericks- 
burg, 5g, 66 ; Chancellors- 
ville, 89. 

Merriam, Lieutenant-Colonel 
Waldo, 203. 

Mervvin, Lieutenant-Colonel H. 
C., 145. 

Mexican War, Hancock's sei-vice 
in, 17-21. 

Miles, General Nelson A., 51 ; 
Chancellorsville, 79, 81. 82, 
87. 155 ; Spottsylvania, 185, 
i8g ; the Salient, ig6, 197, 
igg, 204 ; Cold Harbor, 220 ; 
Deep Bottom, 24S, 252, 256 ; 
Reams's Station, 260, 264, 
266, 267, 271, 272, 274, 314. 

Milford Station, Va., 20g, 213. 

Miller, Major \V: D. W., 40, 59, 
loi, 127. 

Mine Run, 150, 152, 153. 

Mitchell, General William G., 
37 n, 40, 59, loi, 129, 144, 
309-311. 



INDEX. 



327 



Molino del Rey (Mexico), Han- 
cock engaged at, 19, 20. 

Monocacy Junction, Md., 98. 

Morgan, General Charles H., 40, 
loi, 129, 206, 207, 237, 238, 

275- 

Morris, Colonel L. O., 225. 

Morris, Colonel O. H., 221. 

Morton's Ford, action of, 150. 

Mott, General Gershom, 155 ; 
\Vilderness, 1G4, 165, 170, 
175. 177. 17S, 180; Spottsyl- 
vania, 191-192 ; the Salient, 
195, 197, 204; Petersburg, 241, 
245, Deep Bottom, 249, 250, 
254, 255, 257 ; Reams's Sta- 
tion, 260, 265, 267, 268 ; Boyd- 
ton road, 281, 282. 

Murphy, Colonel M , 273. 

National Bridge, Mexico, Han- 
cock's first engagement, 18, 
ly. 

New Orleans, General Hancock 
assumes command at, 296, 297. 

Newton, General John, 135. 

North Anna River, operations 
on, 209-213. 

Northern contrasted with South- 
ern soldiers, 161. 

Ny River, operations on, 207, 
208. 

Nugent, General Robert, 50, 67. 

Officers and enlisted men com- 
pared as to losses in battle, 
181, 182. 

O'Kane, Colonel Denis, 145. 

Old Wilderness Tavern, 158, 
159, 163. 



Orange plank road (the Wil- 
derness], 162-164. 

Ord, General E. O. C, 250, 254. 

Owen, General Joshua T., 98, 
155 ; Wilderness, 165, 170, 
177 ; the Salient, 199 ; Toto- 
potomoy, 214 ; Cold Harbor, 
221, 222, 244. 

Pamunkey River, 212, 213. 
Parke, General John G., 279, 281. 
Parker, Captain Isaac B., 37 n, 

40, 59, lOI. 
Parker's Store (the Wilderness), 

159, 163, 174. 
PeachOrchard (Gettysburg), 120, 

123, 124, 126. 
Peck, Professor W. G., 12. 
Pegram, Colonel, commanding 

Confederate artillery at 

Reams's Station, 269, 270. 
Perry, General E. A., 140. 
Petersburg, chapter xvi et scq. 
Pettigrew, General J. J., 140, 

141, 144. 
Pickett, General George E., at 

W'est Point, 11 ; Mexico, 19 ; 

Gettysburg, 140, 141, 144, 161. 
Pierce, General Byron R., 211, 

241. 
Pierce, General Franklin, 18. 
Pipe Creek, line of (Gettysburg), 

108. 
Piper's house (Antietam), 49. 
Pleasonton, General Alfred, 12. 
Po River, operations on, 186, 

187, 190. 
Point of Rocks, Va., 257. 
Porter, General Fitz John, 11, 

44. 49- 



:2S 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



Porter, Colonel P. A., 222. 
Potter, General R. B., 240. 
Profanity in the army, 33, 34. 

Quartermaster's service, Han- 
cock's experience, 20, 22-24, 
30. 36. 59 n. 

Ramsay, General John, 242. 

Randall, Colonel, 143. 

Rapidan River, 57, 74, 15S, 162. 

Rappahannock River, 57, 74, 75. 

Rawlings, General John A., 
175 n. 

Reams's Station, battle of, chap- 
ter xviii. 

Reconstruction measures, Han- 
cock's relation to, 296-303. 

Rectortovvn, Va., 56. 

Regulars and volunteers com- 
pared as to patriotic feeling, 
25-27. 

Regulations and red tape, Han- 
cock's mastery of, 21, 31, 32. 

Revere, Colonel Paul J., 145 

Reynolds, General John F., 
Chancellorsville, 74, 85, 87, 
gi, 92 ; Gettysburg, 103-105, 
107, 109-110. 

Richardson, General Israel B., 
46-48, 51. 

Richmond, 57, 61, 75, 231, 247, 
294. 

Ricketts, Colonel R. Bruce, 165, 
166. 

Riley, Fort, 296. 

Ritzius, Lieutenant, A. d. C, 59. 

Roberts, Colonel R. P., 126, 145. 

Rodes, General R. E., 195, 199, 
208. 



Rorty, Captain J. McK., 59, 

141. 
Round Tops, the (Gettysburg), 

113, iig, 121, 126, 128-129, 

141. 
Rugg, Lieutenant-Colonel H. 

P., 271, 272, 274. 
Russell, General David A., 11, 

192. 

St. Louis, Hancock on duty 
there, 21, 22 ; married there, 
21, 22. 

Salem Church (Chancellorsville), 
92. 

Salient, the (Spottsylvania), 30, 
igi, 194 et seq., 314. 

Savage Station battery, 45, 49. 

Savage, Colonel John A., 239. 

Scales, General A. M., 140, 142. 

Scott, General George W., 72. 

Scott, General Winfield, 10, 18- 
19. 

Scott, Fort, 18. 

Sedgwick, General John, 46, 74- 
75. 85, 91-93, 131, 153, 153, 
170, 184, 194. 

Seminary Ridge (Gettysburg), 
104-105, 119-120, 13S, 140. 

Seminole War, 22. 

Seymour, Governor, 303. 

Shady Grove Church and road, 
163, 167, 186-187. 

Shaler, General Alexander, 133. 

Sheridan, General Philip H., 
36 ; Cold Harbor, 217 ; Deep 
Bottom, 248, 251-253; rec- 
ommended as brigadier gen- 
eral in regular army, 254-255 ; 
the finish, 289, 291-293 ; ap- 



INDEX. 



329 



pointed lieutenant general, 
304 ; appointed general on 
his deathbed, 313-314. 

Sherman, General W. T., 14, 
254, 239, 291-294, 313. 

Sherrill, Colonel E., 127. 

Sickles, General Daniel E., 
Chancellorsville, 74, 76, 78, 
82, 87 ; Gettysburg, 108, 113, 
121-126, 129-130. 

Sleeper, Major J. Henry, 271. 

Slocum, General H. W., Gaines's 
Mill, 44 ; Antietam, 52 ; Chan- 
cellorsville, 74, 76-77 ; Get- 
tysburg, 93, 121, 133. 

Smith, General Joseph S., loi. 

Smith, Colonel Orlando, no. 

Smith, General William F., 11, 
37 ; Williamsburg, 40, 42-43 ; 
White Oak Swamp, 45 ; Cold 
Harbor, 217, 224 ; Petersburg, 
231-234. 

Smyth, General Thomas A., Get- 
tysburg, loi, 155 ; Wilderness, 
165 ; Spottsylvania, 189 ; Cold 
Harbor, 221-222 ; Deep Bot- 
tom, 256 ; Reams's Station, 
274 ; Farmville, 274. 

Snelling, Fort, Hancock on duty 
at, 20. 

Snicker's Gap (Blue Ridge), 
54- 

South Side Railroad (Peters- 
burg), 279-2S0, 293. 

Southern contrasted with North- 
ern soldiers, 161. 

Spottsylvania, battles around, 
19. 57. 183-208. 

St. Paul, Hancock stationed at, 
304- 



Stannard, General George T., 
137, i;2-i43. 

Stanton, Secretary, 254, 289, 291. 

Steele, Lieutenant-Colonel A. 
E., Jr., 145. 

Stewart, General George H., 
198. 

Stone Wall, the (Fredericks- 
burg), 50, 6o,'65-67. 

Strieker, Lieutenant-Colonel D. 
L., 197, 203. 

Stuart, General J. E. B., 54, 87- 
88. 

Sumner, General E. V., Wil- 
liamsburg, 41 ; Savage Sta- 
tion, 45 ; Antietam, 46, 48- 
49. 51. 53 ; Fredericksburg, 
61-64, 66. 

Sunken Road (Antietam), 49-50. 

Swift Creek (the Totopotomoy), 
214-215. 

Swinton, William, 82. 

Sykes, General George, Chan- 
cellorsville, 76-77, 92 ; Bristoe 
Station, 150. 

Taneytown, 103, 105. 
Taylor, General Zachary, 18. 
Thoman, Lieutenant - Colonel 

Max, 145. 
Thomas, Lieutenant Evan, 89. 
Thomas, General E. L., 140. 
Thoroughfare Gap (Bull Run 

Mountains), 97. 
Tidball, General John C, 155, 

214. 
Todd's Tavern, 159, 163, 167, 

174, 184-185. 
Toombs, General Robert, 44. 
Torbert, General A. T. A., 209. 



330 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



Totopotomoy Creek, operations 

on, 209, 213-216, 219. 
Towson, Fort (Indian Territory), 

17- 
Tschudy, Lieutenant-Colonel 

Martin, 145. 
Tyler, General Robert O., 204, 

207, 216, 221-222. 

Uniontown, 99. 

United States Ford (Rappahan- 
nock River), 71, 74, 89. 

Upperville, Va., 54. 

Upton, General Emory, 191- 
193. 195- 

Vaughan Road (Petersburg), 
279, 2S1. 

Veazey, Colonel Wheelock G., 
136-138, 143-144- 

Vera Cruz, Hancock lands at, 
18. 

Volunteers and " regulars " com- 
pared as to patriotic feeling, 
25-27. 

Volunteers, Hancock's respect 
for, 39-40. 

Wadsvvorth, General James S., 
Gettysburg, 112 ; Wilderness, 
16S, 170, 174-175, 177. 

Walker, General Francis A., loi, 
276. 

Ward, Colonel George H., 128, 
145. 

Ward, General J. H. H., 155, 
180, 244. 

Warren, General Gouverneur 
K., Chancellorsville, 76 ; Get- 
tysburg, 107, 112, 123, 125 ; 



temporary commander Sec- 
ond Corps, 149-15 1 ; ap- 
pointed to command of Fifth 
Corps, 155 ; Wilderness, 156, 
158, 164, 170, 174-175; Spott- 
sylvania, 183-184, 187, 190 ; 
the Salient, 201 ; North Anna, 
212 ; Bethesda Church, 214, 
224 ; threatens Richmond, 
230-231 ; Petersburg, 257, 
259, 264, 268 ; Boydton road, 
280 ; Five Forks, 293. 

Warrenton, 57-58. 

Washita, Fort, Hancock on duty 
at, 18. 

Webb, General Alexander S., 
Gettysburg, 98, loi, 144, 155 ; 
Wilderness, 177 ; Spottsylva- 
nia, igo; the Salient, 202- 
203. 

Weldon Railroad, 242, 259, 263. 

Werner, Lieutenant, command- 
ing battery, 267, 273. 

West Point, Hancock's career 
at, 10-15 ; political education 
at the Military Academy, 

27- 
Wheat Field, the (Gettysburg), 

50, 126. 
White Oak road (Petersburg), 

281-282, 293. 
White Oak Swamp, 49. 
Whittier, Captain E. N., iii- 

112. 
Whittaker House (Williams- 
burg), 41, 43. 
Wilcox, General Cadmus ISL, 

II, 140, 199, 267, 270. 
Wilcox's Landing (James River), 

231. 



INDEX. 



331 



Wilderness, battle of the, chap- 
ters X and xi. 

Willard, Colonel George L., loi, 
126-127, 145- 

Willcox, General O. B., 268, 277. 

Williams, General A. S., 129, 

131. 
Williams, General Seth, 156. 
Williamsburg, battle of, 38, 40- 

43, 57. 156- 314- 
Willoughby Run (Gettysburg), 

104-105. 
Wilson, Colonel John M., 12. 
Wilson, Colonel William P., 40, 

72. 



Winchester, 292. 

Woodruff, Lieutenant, com- 
manding battery, 141. 

Wright, General Horatio G., the 
Salient, 201, 206 ; Cold Har- 
bor, 223-224. 

Yorktown, operations before, 
40-41, 156. 

Zook, General Samuel K., An- 
tietam, 50 ; Fredericksburg, 
59, 66 ; Gettysburg, loi, 126, 
145. 



REFERENCES TO THE 
ARMY OF T 

First Corps, at Chancellorsville, 
74, 85, 87-88 ; at Gettysburg, 
103, 105-107, no, 112, 116, 
118, 121, 129-130, 133, 135- 
136; consolidated with Fifth 
Corps, 153. 

Second Corps, at Antietam, 48 ; 
at Fredericksburg, 53, 58,61, 
68-69 ; at Chancellorsville, 
74, 79, 85, 87, 93-94; at 
Gettysburg, 95-97, 99-101, 
103, 106-108, 114, 119, 122, 
124-126, 128-129, 131, 135- 
136, 140-141, 144-145 ; Get- 
tysburg to the Rapidan, 149- 
150 ; in the reorganization, 
153-155 ; the great review, 
156-157 ; in the Wilderness, 
158-159, 161-162, 165, 167, 



SEVERAL CORPS OF THE 
HE POTOMAC. 

180 ; at Spottsylvania, 185, 
187, 190, 192 ; at the Salient, 
205-208 ; on the North Anna 
and Totopotomoy, 209-211, 
213, 215-216; at Cold Harbor, 
220, 223-224, 227 ; at Peters- 
burg, 231, 233, 236, 240, 242- 
245 ; at Deep Bottom, 247, 
254-255 ; at Reams's Station, 
259, 261-262, 272, 276 ; on 
the Boydton road, 284, 288, 
290-291. 

Third Corps, at Chancellors- 
ville, 74, 78-79; 83, 85, 87- 
88 ; at Gettysburg, 103, 107, 
119, 121, 127, 131, 135 ; dis- 
continued, 153. 

Fourth Corps, at Williamsburg, 
40, 53- 



332 



GENERAL HANCOCK. 



Fifth Corps, at Fredericksburg, 
63 ; nt Chancellorsville, 74, 
76, 78, 85, 87-88 ; at Get- 
tysburg, 113, iig, 122, 124, 
131 ; in the reorganization, 
153 ; in the Wilderness, 158- 
159. 163-164, 167-169; at 
Spottsylvania, 183, 187, 191- 
192 ; at the Salient, 194, 201, 
207 ; on the North Anna 
and Totopotomoy, 211-213, 
215 ; at Petersburg, 230, 243- 
244 ; on the Weldon Rail- 
road, 259, 261, 268 ; Boydton 
road expedition, 280-281, 
287. 

Sixth Corps, the Peninsula to 
Antietam, 45-46 ; at Chancel- 
lorsville, 74, 85, 91-92 ; at 
Gettysburg, 113, 119, 129, 
133 ; in the reorganization, 
153 ; in the Wilderness. 158- 
159. 163-164, 167-169 ; at 
Spottsylvania, 184, 191-192 ; 
at the Salient, 199, 205-206 ; 
on the North Anna and Toto- 
potomoy, 212-213 ; at Cold 
Harbor, 2i8, 220, 223-224 ; 
at Petersburg, 243, 263 ; in 
the Valley, 255. 



Eighth Corps, 255. 

Ninth Corps, at Antietam, 52 ; 
at Fredericksburg, 6i, 68 ; in 
the Wilderness, 159, 162, 168- 
169, 174-176 ; at Spottsyl- 
vania, 184 ; at the Salient, 
206, 208 ; at Petersburg, 258- 
240 ; on the Wcldon road, 
254, 259, 265, 26S ; on the 
Boydton load, 279-281, 293. 

Tenth Corps, 244, 255-256. 

Eleventh Corps, at Chancellors- 
ville, 74, 78, 80-81, 83-86 ; 
at Gettysburg, 103, 105, 107, 
115, 117, 121, 130, 133, 180. 

Twelfth Corps, at Chancellors- 
ville, 74, 76, 78, 85-87, 90 ; at 
Gettysburg, 113, 121, 129- 
131. 133- 

Eighteenth Corps, at Cold Har- 
bor, 217-218, 220, 223-224 ; at 
Petersburg, 231, 239-240, 250, 
254- 

Nineteenth Coi-ps, 255. 
Twenty-fourth Corps, 293. 



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preparing those parts of his work which are necessarily technical, he has wisely re- 
frained from confusing the general reader by an undue parade of technicalities. . 
The narrative proceeds in a clear, concise, and vigorous style, which very materially 
adds to the character of the woric." — Mew \ 'ork Journal oj Covnnerce. 

" The author writes as one who has digged deep before he began to write at all. 
He thus appears as a master of his material. This book inspires immediate confidti.tc 
as well as interest." — Mezv York Times, 

" A most conscientious narrative, from which wise statesmen may learn much for 
their guidance, and it certainly is one of absorbing interest." — Aeui York Commercial 
A dvertiser. 

" Mr. Maclay is specially qualified for the work he has undertaken. Nine years 
has he devot-d to the task. I'tie result of his labors possesses not only readable! e>s 
bat authority. . . . Mr. Majlay's story may be truthfully characterized as a thrilling 
romance, which will interest every mind that is fed by tales of heroism, and will be read 
with patriotic pridj by every true American. " — Chicago £z'ening Post. 

" A more valuable and important work of hiftorj' than this has not been issued Irom 
the press fjr m\'iy a day. It ii n:)t only that this book tells a story never before lold 
(for Cooper's works never profjssed to tell the whole stoiy of our navy, even down to 
his own dayi, but that it is toU with true historic sense, and wi.h the finest critical acu- 
men." — New Yorii Evangelist. 

" A work which is destined to fill a noticeable gap in our national annals."'— Fhila- 

delpkia Bulletin. 

" No better excuse for this important work could be desired than that a navy with 
such a brilliant career on the whole as has the American navy is without a full and con- 
tinuous record of its achievement. . . . The author has important new tacts to tell, 
and he tells them in a clear and graceful literary style."— /liirtj<?rd Post. 

"Mr. Maclay has deservedly won for himself an enviable place among our Amer- 
ican historians. . . . His r^s'iarches have been exl ausiive and his inquiries persistent, 
and he has used his wealth of material with a proper appreciation of historical value." 
— Boston A dvertiser. 

" Like the avera-je yo'in'? .\merican. this puthor has an enthusiastic appreciation of 
American valor on the hi^h seas, and he reproduces graphic sketches of battle scenes 
and incidents in a way to insure for his book a hearty welcome on the part of those 
who keenly enjoy this sart of literature. . . . The illustratiors of the old battle ships 
and the conflicts at sea, made memorable as long as the history of the American 
Republic shall live, add much to the attractiveness of this book. . . . Professor Maclay 
has added a substantial work to historical American l.terature." — Fhiladel/hia Tele- 
graph. 

" It fills a place which has almost escaped the attention of historians. Mr. Maclay's 
work shows on every page the minute care with which he worked up his theme. His 
style is precise and clear, and without any pretense of rhetorical embellishment." — 
Neiu York Tribitne. 



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LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS, 

Hon. WILTJAM L. WILSON, Chairman of the Ways and Means Commiuee, 
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Hon. J. R. SOLEY, formerly Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 

EDWARD ATKINSON, LL. D , Ph.D. 

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J. B. McM ASTER, Professor of Histcy in the University of Pennsylvania. 

CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, LL 1). 

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CHARLKS HORTON COOLEY. 

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D. C. OILMAN, LL. D, President of Johns Hopkins University. 

H. G. PROUT, Editor of the Railro.ad (Gazette. 

F. D. MILLET, formerly Vice-President of the National Academy of Design. 

F. W. TAUSSIG, Professor of Political Economy in Harvard University. 

HENRY VAN BRUNT. 

H. P. FAIRFIELD. 

SAMUEL W. ABBOTT, M. D., Secretary of the State Board of Health, Massa- 
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